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The Top 10 Enemies To Salvation! Why People Don’t Get Saved!
(Ver 1.1) There are a countless number of enemies to salvation. I want to address the Bible reasons for why people do not get saved. Maybe you did not realize it, but salvation is not automatic. Just because God wants you to be saved, does not mean you are saved. If you read the Bible and study it very carefully you will discover that whatever God has freely given to man, man is required to do something to enjoy it. So salvation is a partnership agreement between you and God. God initiated salvation by His grace and you receive it by your faith. I hope that you understand that concept because it is a spiritual law and is a pattern for how things work in the Bible from cover to cover.
Act 28:28 Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.
This verse in Acts speaks about a process of how salvation works. There are steps required to be taken to get saved. No one is automatically saved. In fact by default you are not saved. You are born into a world of evil and sin. As a very young child you have not reached the age of accountability and are unable to understand sin, even though the sinful nature resides in your flesh. I believe that young children that are killed or die prematurely go to heaven. But I guess I’m getting off of the main subject of why people don’t get saved. In this verse in Acts it speaks to us about an implied process. We have to have someone who is sent to preach the gospel to the people, the people have to listen, hear, and understand what is being said, then the people have to believe what is said. Then they have to accept and confess Jesus as their Lord. I know I gave you a lot of information that is not in that verse, but let’s look in the Bible for what I just said:
Rom 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Rom 10:15 And how shall they saved, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
You see the process of salvation being described in reverse order in these verses. To be saved a man or a woman must be sent by God to preach and proclaim the good news that God has forgiven them of their sins and has reconciled them back into a favorable relationship to Him. So Salvation is dependent upon someone “preaching”. The first enemy to people not getting saved is for nobody to “preach” and proclaim the good news. All it takes for no one else to be saved is for everyone to keep their mouths closed. So you are the potential first enemy to the salvation of the world. What people do sometimes is think that they have to do something to make others get saved. So they get into a works mentality of protesting against sins like abortion, or homosexuality or whatever. All this does is turn people off of God’s process. God does not work within your guidelines, you must work within His guidelines. You are responsible to do your part and nothing else. Preaching against sin and sinners is not in the Bible. The Bible tells us that God has given to us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18). That means to go and tell people that God is not mad at them and that He has forgiven their sins and doesn’t hold them against them anymore. We are required to go and preach the Gospel meaning the Good News of God and that is all.
The next step in salvation is to say things in a way that people will clearly understand them. You see people do not get saved just because they hear you speak. Hearing is involved, but that is not the complete picture of salvation. People need to hear enough information to clearly understand the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So the next enemy to salvation is not communicating effectively and clearly. I hope you see that you have a responsibility and a major role to play. You are God’s light in the world for others to see. People who do not know God cannot see God, they can only see and hear you. You are responsible for communicating in a way that speaks the truth in love. You are responsible for more than you realize.
So the next step in the Salvation process is for the hearer to believe what you say. Did you know you are not responsible for making them believe anything. If they can’t look at you and see that you are different and what you are saying is true, then you are not God and your job is done. Jesus said in Mark, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel, those that believe will be saved and those that believe not will be damned”. We again see God’s process of Salvation in this verse. A preacher goes and tells someone and someone hears and believes it or chooses not to accept it. You are not responsible for their decision. As sad or as joyous as it might be you are not responsible any further.
So what are the primary two enemies to the world getting saved? First no one goes and tells anyone the good news. Next, you tell someone the wrong information or in the wrong way so that they do not understand it clearly. These are the first two enemies for people getting saved. So let’s go through why people reject the Gospel even if it is presented in the right way:
1Co 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
This verse tells us that people think the message is foolishness. It could be that they do not understand how much of a sinner they are and how much they need salvation. Many people think they have never done anything bad enough to not be saved. In many religions it boils down to a works mentality. People doing good things to earn a place in paradise. Some even teach that life is like a balance scale and if your good side of your scale outweighs the bad side, you are automatically saved. It is amazing how much works comes into play. I have even seen men beating themselves with chains to punish themselves and they think this act earns them favor before God. The level of deception in the world is tremendous and many have bought into this works idea;
2Ti 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
You see in the Bible it clearly tells us that our works are not factors in us getting saved. There are many verses in the Bible that speak to us in these terms. No matter how good you think you are you cannot earn a ticket into heaven. So I would say that the third enemy to people getting saved are those that think they can work and do good to make it into heaven. If you run into people like this you might be able to help them see the error of their ways by showing them Bible verses. Like the Bible says “if you are guilty of violating one law you are guilty of the whole law” (James 2:10). The Bible actually says any offense is guilt. One sin is not of greater sin consequence than another. They are all equally the same result to everyone. The Bible says the wages of sin is death so we know any sin results in death.
So let’s look at Jesus’ words concerning the Salvation process. Jesus gives us a parable that uses natural things to demonstrate some powerful spiritual truths. Jesus made the statement that this parable was the most important for us to know and understand. If we don’t understand this parable, Jesus said how can you know any parable?
Mar 4:3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
Jesus tells us that a man went out to sow seeds in a field. The symbolic field represents the hearts of men and women in the world. The symbolic seed is the “Word of God”. The symbolic “sower” represents the preachers who go and tell the world the good news. Jesus gives us only one verse on the preacher’s responsibility and then he starts to talk about the hearer:
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 we discover in this parable is the heart of men and women in the world come in different kinds of soil. The preacher or “sower” does not know what kind of soil they are sowing into. It almost sounds like a random pattern of sowing seed everywhere you can. This first kind of soil called “way side” was a soil that was particularly compressed and hard packed and the seeds were easy for the birds of the air to come and eat. The symbolic birds or the air are representative of Satan and his demon spirits. These are called the “prince of the power of the air” and “prince” means the ruler of the atmosphere. You can understand all of these by reading Jesus’ explanation of the parable later in the chapter. It is implied in these people that they really do not hear what you are saying. In this example of the first type of soil we can clearly see that Satan is another key enemy to salvation.
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:
Jesus then describes the second condition of the hearts of men and women. This soil is said to be “stony ground”. Again a hardness of the heart is implied. The inability of the seed to get any depth and it remains on the hard surface. So as the seed grows Jesus says it is unable to take root. In the explanation, Jesus tells us that these people receive the word gladly, but they soon are offended and fall away. Jesus informs us that other people in the world are not on our side or God’s side in helping you to get saved. Jesus tells us because of “affliction” or “persecution” because of the Word that you have heard, people are soon offended and fall away. Please note that your old unsaved friends are one of your worst enemies to your salvation.
Mar 4:7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
In the next example of the heart of man, the realization of “weeds” are described. If you have ever owned a home and had a front yard with grass you understand that you have to do nothing to get weeds. Weeds are a part of the fallen world system. They come with the territory. In this example of soil the weeds dominate the seed and take control over the soil. It is clear that these people in this soil hear the word of God, but yet they do not produce any spiritual fruit for God. Why is this? Jesus tells usthree very important enemies to salvation in his explanation:
Mar 4:19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
Jesus says the “Cares of this World” choke out the Word of God. The cares of the world include many things. It could be your job. It could be your husband. It could be your children. It could be your car. It could be your boat. It could be your love for movies. I could go on and on. Placing inordinate priority on anything in this world will cause you to make that your God and you will not produce fruit for God. Jesus told us that where your treasure is there your heart will be also (Mat 6:21). What He was asking us to look at is what we think is important. If something else in the world is more important to you than the Bible, you are in trouble. Next, Jesus describes a kind of people who think they don’t need God because they trust in their abilities, possessions and their resources. Jesus tells us that it is very hard for a rich man on earth to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven (Mat 19:23). They build their big barns and fill them with their possessions and think they are in control of their destiny. Having a false sense of security, because of all of the nice things they surround themselves with, they fall into deception easily. Finally, Jesus gives us the third problem this type of soil is faced with. The “Lusts” of other things. Did you know that “Lust” is not always a negative thing? It just depends upon what you are “lusting” for. A “lust” is a very strong desire. It can become a habitual desire and that is when it starts to control you. It never starts that way, it just can easily develop into something larger. Nobody starts out as an alcoholic. Many times it takes years of repetitious behavior. Eating and food can become more important to you than God. There are really so many examples of this that I cannot go into them all. I’m sure you understand what I am talking about. You have seen how drugs can hook someone into a lifelong dependency. People become so hooked on the drug that it controls their life and they spend all of their money on it and eventually it kills them.
The Enemies To Salvation:
- A Preacher is Sent But Does Not Go!
- A Preacher Doesn’t Say Anything!
- A Preacher Says the Wrong Thing!
- Satan Steals the Word From your Mind and You do not Hear
- You do not understand what is being said!
- Your Old Unsaved Friends Come Around and Laugh at You and You are Offended!
- You Give Up because of the Pressure of Your Peers!
- Other Things in the World Take Priority Over God!
- Having a False Sense of Security In Your Wealth! Trusting in Your Money!
- Lusts and Desires for Natural Things! Food, drugs, alcohol, sex, TV, movies, books!
If you have never been saved! You are a candidate today to receive the free gift of God’s salvation. If you have read this blog you have heard a lot more than many other people have. You can see that there are enemies to your salvation and you are now faced with a choice. This is not a hard or difficult process to get saved, it is actually outlined in this verse of scripture:
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.
I can tell you that Jesus was raised from the dead and that He now lives in me and I know him personally. If you want the same, all you have to do is believe that God has raised Jesus from the dead and then say “Jesus I make you my Lord and Savior”. If you meant it and did those two things, Jesus now lives in you also. Congratulations you are saved!
Deceptions in the Modern World designed to Deceive and Control Us Part 4 – Is the Government Your God?
(Ver 1.1) This is now “Part 4” in the Bible study series concerning the subject of modern strategies of the devil to deceive Christians. If you have not read this series from the beginning you might like to start with “Part 1” first. But please understand that this lesson is not dependent upon any previous lesson to be understood and applied in your life. I think millions of Americans are being raised and indoctrinated to look at the government as their personal source for whatever they need. If someone needs food, the government invented food stamps. If someone needs housing, they invented Welfare and Section 8 housing. If someone lost their job and needs money the government invented unemployment income. Now the government has been looking to solve everyone’s health care issues by giving a people free Medicare that is again going to be paid for by other rich people. There are a never ending list of deceptive promises designed to trick us into being controlled by the government. All I ask is “Who is Your God”? Do you look for God to help you or is that the responsibility of your government? Do you pray to God or the President or Congress? Is a human your god? I do not think so!
Ignorant Christians obviously vote our congress and president into government office. And I wonder who is their god to them? My point of this lesson is to get us to see that God is still God and that He is capable of solving whatever problem that we are facing right now. This of course doesn’t help anyone that does not believe there is a God. But my Bible says “That a fool says there is no God”, and it is very difficult to help a fool. But for Christians my Bible also says “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb 12:2) Christians should be looking to Jesus as their source for whatever we need. Whatever Jesus did while he walked the face of the earth, He still does today. The Bible says “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb 13:8). Jesus has not changed in His love, His actions or His deeds. Whatever He did before, He can do again! Always remember what Jesus did in the Gospels. He healed blind eyes, He healed lame men, He healed lepers, He raised the dead, He fed 5000 once and 3000 another time. Is there anything too hard for our God?
So is the government our source and supply? Are new government programs the answer for our problems? Should we expand the government so that they can solve all of our problems? This might be news to you, but our current government cannot sustain the current level of growth and monetary deficits. Our government will not survive at this rate very much longer. Our government is already bankrupt, financially and morally. If our government was a financial institution they would have needed a bail out a long time ago. We are living in an extremely fragile time and the least little thing can send everything spiraling out of control. The world financial markets are perpetuating an illusion of stability. The governments of the world are uncontrollably spending money they do not have to prop-up the illusion of stability. The world will soon realize that the stage is set for the anti-Christ to appear.
People have been raised and conditioned to look to the government to solve all of their problems. So when the anti-Christ appears on the scene offering solutions for every problem that he has created for you to see, people will automatically jump in that pool with all of their clothes on and soon drown in the waters of confusion and deception.
Php 4:19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Looking to the government for our answers is exactly what Satan wants us to do. By Satan offering to solve all of our problems we will be deceived into a false sense of security. Everything will appear to be great for a short time. Satan will try to teach us that we can get by without God! He will then attempt to teach that we can ignore the Bible. It is a deceiving plan to teach that people won’t need a God as long as the government feeds them! God doesn’t need to send us manna from heaven as long as we have food stamps.
SO, WHO IS YOUR GOD? Is your God too small to fix your problem?
What we need to do as a nation is to bring back God as our source and supply. We then need to help people who do not know God to see the truth. Then we need to teach these people who are in need to learn how to fish for themselves. As long as the government continues to give out free fish to everyone, no one will be motivated to do the right thing and learn to help others.
Please join me in praying for God to help us to not be deceived by our governement:
LORD, I come to you as our Jehovah Jireh. The God of more than enough supply and provision. As you supplied Abraham with a ram for sacrifice instead of Isaac, you are more than able to supply what is needed to fulfill your plan and your purpose for my life. Help me O’LORD to not place my faith in the provisions of a temporary human government on the earth. Help me to not be deceived by the deception of temporary promises from anyone on earth not speaking Your Words and Your Will, especially people who are being used by Satan. Grant me wisdom to know who to vote for in our elections. Help me to vote for people that do your will and hear your voice. I look to you the creator of the heavens and the earth and declare you be LORD over my mind, my thoughts, my will, my emotions and my Spirit. Thank you for leading me into the paths of truth and life and far from the ways of deception and death. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Thank you for reading and studying the Bible about the ways Satan is trying to deceive us in the Church today. These are things we must learn and avoid to follow after. Please leave a comment or press “Like” if you agree with this message. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue to learn in this series on “Deception” please go to “Part 5“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 5
(Ver 1.3) This is part five of a series of advanced Bible study lessons on the methods that God has used to conceal information in the Bible for us to find. By studying, learning and understanding these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the real truth of God’s Word. We have already discussed that God uses various methods of hiding information of which I have first mentioned has consisted of Him spreading the information out randomly over the entire Bible in an unorganized pattern which causes it to be difficult for us to find all of the verses on any related subjects. I like to call this the truth seed scattering method of hiding truth. It is very much like a farmer out in his field planting seeds to produce a single crop. The seeds fall in random order but they all grow together in unison to make up the unified crop to harvest. That is exactly like the Word of God was designed. You can find subjects throughout the Bible and they must all be considered equally when interpreting the Bible. Other methods we have talked about are God’s usage of figurative language, God’s usage of symbolism and symbolic representations and God’s usage of parables. If you have not read these lessons from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.
Technique 5: Referring to the Same Thing Using Multiple Names, Titles or Descriptions
Another very common method of hiding information in the Bible is something that God uses very often and it is literally a very tricky method of hiding information. You see if God wanted to tell you something and He wanted to make it harder to find, one method might be that He could depict it using different descriptions, terms, titles or names. God could be talking about the exact same thing, but this makes it significantly more difficult to associate and put the pieces together correctly. What if your Bible study subject was about “the words that people speak” or just “spoken words”. Have you ever thought how you would attempt to find every verse in the Bible that refers to this one subject so that you could potentially gain a thorough knowledge on it? You would have to search the Bible for “word”, “words”, “speech”, “speeches”, “spoken”, “spoke”, “speak”, “speaker”, “say”, “saying”, “sayings”, “tell”, “told”, “console”, “consoled”, “council”, “commune”, “communicate”, “converse”, “demand”, “demanded”, “demands”, “command”, “commanded”, “commandment”, “commands”, “talk”, “talks”, “talker”, “voice”, “voices”, “breath”, “mouth”, “lips”, “tongue”, “tongues”, “whisper”, “whispers”, “whispered”, “question”, “questions”, “questioned”, “ask”, “asked”, “asks”, “inquire”, “inquiring”, “inquired”, “request”, “requests’, “requested”, “utter”, “uttered”, “utters”, “babble”, “utterance”, “declare”, “declared”, “declares”, “inspire”, “inspired”, “inspiration”, “encourage”, “encouragement”, “correct”, “corrected”, “correction”, “scorn”, “sarcasm”, “mockery”, “cynicism”, “irony”, “ironic”, “sound”, “sounds”, just to name a few of the obvious ones. How many other words am I leaving out that can be taken as “spoken words”? What about the truth, a lie, or lies, or lying? What about someone who prays or is praying, or has prayed, isn’t that speaking words to God? This is the root of the problem, there are so many other synonymous words that I did not include and then there are also some not so obvious ones that are very difficult to find. For example, what about a babbling brook or a flame of fire? What about a reference to a fountain, a rudder, a bit or a bridle? What about the fruit of your lips? Jesus said “out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water.” That is a not so obvious reference to something coming out of their mouths and it must be their spoken words. This verse does not mention words directly nor even have a direct reference to the area of the mouth, but yet it speaks about something coming out of an area of the body that normally you put stuff into, to feed your body. That is very tricky, if you ask me. Then the Bible describes Jesus as the man with the sharp two-edged sword coming out of his mouth, and again that is a symbolic reference talking about His spoken words. Words are described in terms of a weapon that cuts two ways. That is some very powerful information on the subject of spoken words, yet how would you find it and recognize the significance?
I do hope you grasp what I’m saying for it is very important that you do. There are so many ways to describe and speak about any subject that it makes it very difficult to think of them all, much less to find all of them in the Bible. You would have to read the Bible from cover to cover on every Bible study, paying very close attention to every word to see if it is related to the subject you are searching for. Even then many of the references could be symbolic, figurative, or some other reference that makes it difficult to recognize with just a surface reading.
So let’s talk about the “devil” or Satan. How many different Bible verses can you come up with that describe this spiritual being in not so obvious terms. I can think of a bunch so I’ll give you a few examples to get you started in thinking of new ways to recognize this technique used in the Bible. Satan is called the “serpent”, the “dragon”, the “deceiver”, the “accuser”, the “prince of this world”, the “god of this world”, the “thief”, the “enemy”, the “ruler of the darkness”, “Lucifer”, “Beelzebub”, the “moon”, and I probably could go on and on. Wouldn’t it have been easier, if God had always called Satan by the name “Satan” and then we would have been able to understand when He was talking about him in a more precise and clear manner? Of course it would! But nobody said the Bible was simple! God intentionally designed every word of the Bible to conceal and reveal information.
By calling one thing by a multitude of different names or titles, you make it significantly more difficult to find and understand them. But God can also give new implied information in using this technique. For example, one of the first times that Satan is mentioned in the Bible, he is called “the serpent” (Genesis 3). But, in Revelation 12 he is called “the dragon”. We are also clearly told in Revelation 12 that the dragon was the ancient serpent. Therefore, both are symbolic references to the same spiritual entity. However, you can infer from these two references some qualities that have transpired or have developed in the course of time over the last 6000 years. Satan who was called the serpent was a much smaller and insignificant spiritual being in Genesis. As a symbolic serpent he was a manageable force. But, now as a great red dragon in Revelation he has implied growth and strength which also infers a much greater power. In other words, Satan is a much larger formidable spiritual opponent in Revelation than he was in Genesis. This information was given to us indirectly by God using two different symbolic references for the same spiritual being called Satan. If you would like to read my lesson on the “Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Satan” found in the Bible it would be worth your time to go and check it out.
I’ll give you one more example, since this subject is so vitally important to correct Bible interpretation. God calls the sun by multiple names and descriptions. If you just searched the Bible for the obvious word “sun” you would miss some of the most important verses in the Bible on the subject. By only searching for the obvious “sun”, you will miss the not so obvious ways to describe the sun. The very first reference in the Bible of the “sun” is found in Genesis 1 on the 4th day of creation and God calls the sun the “greater light” in Genesis 1:16. The “Greater Light” is the prophetic symbolic ruler of the day and of course represents a symbolic type of Jesus Christ who was to come to the earth on the 4th day (4000 years) of human history. Then in 2 Peter 1:19 God calls the sun the “Day Star“. If you understand astronomy you understand our sun is nothing but our closest star that lights our days. This is a physical reality that symbolizes a spiritual reality. In this verse in 2 Peter, Jesus is again called the Sun that rises in the hearts of men. Finally, in Revelation 22:16 the sun is given another completely different name and is called the “Bright and Morning Star“. Again this is literally speaking about the sun. This verse in Revelation is Jesus speaking directly to us and claiming to be the Sun of Righteousness found in Malachi. Then in 1 John 2:8 we find a symbolic sun being referred to as the “true light“. That is radically important to the subject of the sun, but a reference that would be very hard to find. So if you just searched the Bible for the term “sun”, you missed three or four of the most important verses on the subject. To adequately satisfy the subject you would need to start with the obvious references of the “sun”, “day”, “daylight”, “light”, “morning”, “dawn” and then be smart enough to look for the not so obvious ones like “star”.
Another technique that I haven’t spoken of yet is opposite or antithesis truths. To understand “day” you might also have to understand “night”. To understand the “Sun” you might also need to understand the “moon”. To understand “light” you might also need to understand “darkness”. Many times in the Bible a subject is covered by speaking about what it is not. Light is not darkness so when God tells you about “darkness” you can infer some meaning to what light is. It can get very complicated and I know you will get it if you start to look for it. I also just gave you a small sample of the names of Jesus found in the Bible, if you would like you can go to “Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Jesus” found in the Bible and begin to recognize how many ways there are to describe one person. It is almost overwhelming.
Begin to recognize that there are literally dozens of ways to describe the same thing. God can be talking about the same thing in multiple verses, but calling them by different names. All this does is make it more difficult and challenging for us to figure it all out. I do hope you get it! This is a very prevalent and widespread technique used by God to conceal information in the Bible. Why, because you probably didn’t realize that there were so many multiple ways of naming something. Things, events, people, and places in the Bible are often referred to using different titles and names based upon different descriptive qualities and attributes. I can’t tell you how important it is that you grasp this concept and know this technique of hiding information in the Bible. Using this knowledge alone will cause you to learn more than you can imagine.
If you would like to continue reading this series, please continue to “Part 6“.
Who Sinned This Man or His Parents? John 9 Part 3 Understanding the Spiritual Heart of Man!
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 3 in this Bible series on understanding the subjects of Night and Day and the spiritual heart of man and this will be different than anything that you have ever heard before. If you have not read from the beginning of this series I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“. Today’s lesson wa a revelation that God taught me almost 20 years ago, when I was working for a small software company. I had a co-worker that had graduated from a large seminary and he was a very confused individual. For someone who could quote a large part of the Bible, he understood practically none of it. He even studied the Hebrew and the Greek and still knew nothing of who God was or what He said in His Word. He was a prime example of a man with two good eyes that could read but who couldn’t see what the words meant. God and I tried to help him and teach him the truth, but he did not want to see it. It is funny how God does things, especially for people who trust in their own ability or their own wisdom. God will most of the time send some lowly nobody that does not fit the pattern that they esteem or hold as valuable. You can recognize this was the same problem that the Jewish leadership had when Jesus walked among them. Most of them looked down on Jesus as a nobody man from Nazareth and he certainly did not fit their inner circle of self appointed importance. So what did they do? They crucified their God and their creator. They did not recognize the one that gave them their Holy Book of the law. Even though this book contained so many verses that pointed them to Jesus, they did not see it. I hope you are not like any of them. Look for foolish things sometimes as a source for the greatest wisdom and you will more than likely see it is from God.
So today I am going to talk about spiritual blindness from a familiar story found in the Bible in John chapter 9. In this story Jesus is said to heal a physically blind man. My seminary co-worker told me that this chapter proves that God causes some people to be sick, so that Jesus could heal them. That was a very confused interpretation and from what God showed me a clear misunderstanding of what this chapter was about. People read and see what they want to see. The seminary graduate was looking for verses that proved God caused some people to be sick for His glorious purpose. It was very sad to see people treat God with such disrespect. According to him, God would do something so perverted and illegal in the eyes of our court system that if tried, He would have to be found guilty and thrown into jail as a child abuser. Let’s start reading this story starting with verse 2:
Joh 9:2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
In this verse the disciples asked Jesus a difficult question. It is apparent that the disciples believed that sickness came as a result of someone’s sin so they asked Jesus as they passed by a blind man, who sinned? This man or his parents to cause him to be born blind? So here is the answer that Jesus gives to their question:
Joh 9:3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
Here is where you need to start to pay attention to what is said very closely, for Jesus does answer their question, but not the question that they had in their mind. Jesus told them “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him”. You may recall that the Bible says in Roman 3:23 that ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God, so we know Jesus is not saying these people never sinned. You see Jesus answered the question that He heard in His mind and not the question that come from their minds. Do you understand the difference? If you do you are doing better than most. The answer was from God’s perspective on the situation. God’s perspective is always a spiritual perspective first and foremost. This is an extremely valuable lesson in correct Bible interpretation. God tells us in His Word, “My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways” (Isa 55:8). So Jesus, who was God in the flesh was not thinking naturally like they were. The disciples were seeing a naturally blind man and asking a question about what caused his physical blindness. But, Jesus was looking at the man’s heart and what caused his spiritual blindness. The disciples asked a natural question and Jesus gives a spiritual answer. My co-worker from the seminary never saw it either. Jesus told the disciples that his spiritual blindness was not caused by anyone’s sin and then starts talking about working the works of God. Verse 3 is where the seminary graduate said it proved that God made him blind so that Jesus could work and heal him. But, look at what else Jesus teaches us as he continues to answer their question. Notice Jesus did not stop talking, but says the following:
Joh 9:4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
Jesus starts by talking about working God’s work and we will look at that in a second. But, you see in this verse Jesus starts talking about the spiritual day and night. This is not the natural day and night that Jesus is talking about. If you start to realize that Jesus is speaking symbolically of the spiritual day and night then you will begin to understand the rest of this chapter. Again in this verse Jesus mentions the “work of God”. Automatically preachers and readers (as well as the disciples of Jesus) think naturally and see the work of God as being a physical healing. But, let’s continue to the next verse and the final statement in the answer to the question of who sinned?
Joh 9:5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
This statement is an incredibly informative verse that is a combination of natural and spiritual things. You see Jesus was in the natural physical world. God made manifest in the flesh. But, then he says “I am the light of the world”. Did Jesus tell the disciples that he was our Sun that lights our natural day? Or did Jesus continue to show them a spiritual truth. I believe Jesus was speaking that He was the spiritual Sun light of the world. This is exactly why the Bible is so tricky to correctly interpret. We have a verse that combines natural things and spiritual things and we are given the assignment to figure it out. This is an example of rightly dividing God’s Word. Thank God, He helps us.
If you continue reading in the next few verses in the chapter you see that Jesus spits and makes mud from the ground and then rubs it in the blind man’s eyes. Jesus tells the man to go and wash in the pool of Siloam and the man did and it says that the man came back seeing. So was that all of the story? Is that where the story ended? Of course it is not and that is the problem with trying to take one Bible verse and trying to say God made him blind so that Jesus could heal him. People need to do a much better job of studying and seeing what the Bible says. According to a lot of preachers I heard this is where the story should end. They were focused in on Jesus healing the natural man’s blindness and did not see the rest of the story. What if Jesus healed the man physically and 35 years later the man dies and goes to hell? Would Jesus have been pleased with giving this man sight for 35 years and him still going to hell for an eternity. No you see Jesus was focused in on people’s spiritual blindness. Jesus cared more about the man’s spiritual eyesight than He did about healing the man’s physical blindness.
So what was the work of God that Jesus was interested in doing? Was it healing the people’s physical bodies or was that just an introduction to help them to see who they were dealing with. Jesus gives us a definition for the work of God in this same book of the Bible. So instead of making a wrong assumption by thinking we know what the work of God was that Jesus was here to accomplish, let’s go find out what God said about why He was here. If you can find it, this will be an absolutely critical piece of the puzzle. In order to correctly interpret the Bible you must get God’s definitions for every subject. Let’s go and find that definition and see what Jesus said was the work of God that He came to do:
Joh 6:28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
You see the disciples ask Jesus another question and this time they want to know how to work the works that Jesus was here to do. Jesus is about to give us the definition for the work of God in his answer and it is not the answer that most are expecting to hear:
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Here is God’s definition for work and it is not healing people physically. Jesus tells his disciples that the work of God that He was here to do was to get people to believe in the one that God had sent. This of course was Jesus speaking of Himself. Learning this truth alone changes your perspective on the entire story of the blind man in John 9. Once you see that Jesus only heals the man physically to get him to see spiritually you can begin to see the true meaning of the chapter. Now we know what to look for. We also can begin to understand how Jesus did what he did and why. Jesus said that the Work of God was to get men to believe in the One that God sent. So why didn’t Jesus just open the eyes of the blind man and ask him if he believed? You see the man would not have had any opportunity to believe anything. Jesus spit and made mud and rubbed it into his eyes to get his attention. When Jesus told the man to go and wash. The man had an opportunity to say “what are you crazy, I’m not going to waste my time”. The man obviously believed something by traveling to the pool of Siloam. The pool was not that close and the walk to the pool would present many opportunities for the man to question what he was doing. If he would have doubted and not gone to the pool he would have never been healed. The blind man had exhibited some level of faith by just obeying Jesus’ instructions. That is believing in something that you haven’t seen yet.
Let’s quickly review spiritual blindness. We know from the New Testament that Satan is the source for spiritual blindness.
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.
You see in this verse God tells us that Satan who is called the god of this world has blinded the minds of everyone that refuses to believe on Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus is again called a light in this verse that will shine into the hearts of men who let him in. But, we can see that is why Jesus could answer in John 9 that neither this man sinned or his parents to cause the man’s spiritual blindness. It was Satan that caused the man not to see spiritually. Jesus was answering their natural question with a spiritual answer.
So what happens in this story of the man that was born blind? How does it end? The blind man goes and washes in the pool and comes back seeing. Everyone is amazed and there arises a great debate of the religious minds and leaders of the day. They question the man repeatedly and bring in his parents and question them. They have tremendous curiosity of what happened and they are focused in on the fact that Jesus did all of this on the Sabbath. They call Jesus a sinner for working on the Sabbath and not keeping God’s law. If they only could see who they were talking about. Well the conversation and questions continue for many verses and they eventually end up with them casting the formerly blind man out of their church. I guess it was technically a synagogue, but I just wanted to get your attention. What did Jesus do immediately after all of this? You notice Jesus did not show up to defend the blind man or to testify to the religious zealots. Jesus in effect knew they were not reachable and he did nothing to defend himself either. Jesus finds the formerly blind man and asks him this question:
Joh 9:35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
Did you see what Jesus was interested in? Jesus didn’t ask him about how do you like seeing the world. No, Jesus said “Do you believe in the Son of God?” Jesus is dealing with his spiritual blindness and solving the problem of the man’s eternal destiny. We can finally see the real work of God being performed. Jesus was interested in getting the man to believe that He was sent from God. The man immediately asks who is this Son of God that I might believe and Jesus tells him it is the one that you are looking at right now and talking with. So the man says “Yes Lord I believe” and worships him. This was a man whose spiritual eyes were opened to know the One True Living God of Creation. His eternal destiny is established and I plan on seeing him in heaven some day.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were spiritually blind, but Jesus couldn’t help them to see. Real seeing is an act of the human spirit. Believing in someone that you have only heard about and have never seen. This is God talking to you right now. Do you believe? I’m not God, but He is using me right now to say something to you. Believe in Him!
Luk 8:12 Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
Choose to be a believer!
Night and Day Defined! Understanding the Spiritual Heart of Man! Part 2
(Ver 1.2) This is a series of lessons on a basic spiritual truth that reveals the hidden conditions of the hearts of men and women in the world. God reveals this spiritual truth using the things created and found in the natural universe. These natural things are clearly symbolic and represent a far greater spiritual truth. I am convinced that this is an essential basic truth that every Christian should become intimately familiar with. This is now part 2 of the series and I would suggest that if you have not read from the start that you go back and start with Part 1.
There is a real man or a real woman inside of the physical bodies of every person on the earth. These real people are spirit beings that will live forever somewhere after their body dies. However, most people in the world today don’t know about this fact and are oblivious to this stated reality found in the Bible. The Bible often times speaks of these spiritual individuals in the hidden terms of the “heart”. The “heart” of a man is the spirit of the man. God is not talking about the physical blood pumping organ, God is talking about the center of your being, as in the heart of an apple or the heart of a tree. The “heart” term used by God is a figurative Bible term and describes the center of a human. This center of your being is the real you that you can not see. When a physical body dies, the person’s spirit is immediately transported to one of two possible places. One place is very good location called heaven and the other one is a very bad location called hell. The spiritual things are the real eternal things, the natural things are the temporary things (2 Cor 4:18). God has designed a system in the world that limits humans to a three dimensional realm with specific time constraints. All of these constraints represents natural boundaries and laws. When your body dies, you leave the natural realm you enter into the spiritual realm and you normally never come back (2 Cor 5:8). I have heard of a few people dying and going into the spiritual realm and then they are revived or come back to life in their physical bodies, but I would not put all my eggs in this basket hoping that is what will happen to you. Many times these people can see in both realms simultaneously. These people can see the hospital room, the doctors, the nurses, their family and their body but usually they are above all of this looking down on it all. These people are either sent back by God or God has allowed them to see and experience this in order to tell others that there is more to life than these few years we have on the earth. So this was a brief explanation of the spiritual realm.
In my last blog I introduced you to a number of scriptures that reveal the hearts of people to be either in darkness or in the light of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Darkness and Light are symbolic references and are synonymous terms for Night and Day. Today we will explore more scriptures found in the New Testament that further enlighten us to these truths.
Isa 9:2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
I’ll start with this prophecy from the Old Testament. This verse is speaking about Jesus coming to the earth personally walking among us. This verse calls Jesus Christ the “great light” and that is of course a very significant statement. In my last blog we read verses that showed Jesus to be the spiritual Sun, the spiritual light of the world. Just as the physical sun is the source for all natural light on our planet, Jesus is the only source for all spiritual light on our planet. In this verse in Isaiah the people are described as being in the darkness. The darkness is caused by something that is blocking the light and causing a shadow. You do understand the concept of shadows? A shadow is an area where the direct light is not shinning. The direct light has been blocked by another object that casts a shadow on the ground. We were the people in this shadow and this shadow was caused by “death” and Satan. If you read the New Testament you will find verses that describe Satan as holding the power of death. So that is why I related the two together. The Bible says Jesus was made manifest in order to destroy him that had the power over death (Heb 2:14). So we can clearly see who is causing the darkness in the spiritual realm, it is Satan. So the term “great light” let’s explore that term to learn more about the spiritual hearts of men.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser lightto rule the night: he made the stars also.
You see in the fourth day of creation God makes a prophetic and symbolic reference to spiritual things that were to come. God makes the “greater light” AKA “great light” to rule the “day”. God then makes a “lesser light” to rule the “night”. These lights are very significant to see and understand for other Bible interpretations. The “greater light” is the Sun and represents Jesus Christ. The “lesser light” is the moon and represents Satan. These two spiritual rulers are over their own separate domains or kingdoms. The Sun rules the Day (Ps 136:8), the moon rules the night (Ps 136:9). These separate 12 hour periods represent two different spiritual realms and conditions of the hearts of people. So the planet earth is a type and pattern of the human heart. The sun shines on the earth in a constant and consistent manner and the earth revolves and is either in the shadow or darkness or in the light depending on how it is positioned at any given time. The earth represents the hearts of men that have the opportunity to change and allow the light to shine or to turn away and stay in the darkness. When Jesus was walking the face of the planet some 2000 years ago he told us this:
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 made a bold and direct statement that He was the Spiritual Sun, the Greater Light that shined in the world. Jesus said by following Him we would never again walk in the darkness but always have the “light of life”. So light represents Life and darkness represents death. Life and death are very strong analogies and very important to understand.
Act 26:18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
We can certainly see what I told you about the hearts of men having to be turned from darkness to light. It is clearly the responsibility of the men and women to do the turning, God will not force you to turn, but He will help you if you ask. Then there is another stark contrast given between these two realms. Satan has the power to rule in the darkness. To say Satan is powerless would be an error. But what is important to note is that his power is limited to the realm of “darkness” and the “night”. If you are in the light you are outside of the realm of his influence and power, or at least you should be. Satan will still attempt to deceive you and influence power over you until you learn not to let him.
Col 1:12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
Col 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
You see these two spiritual realms being starkly contrasted again. The power of darkness is where, we the church use to be, but we are now called “saints in light”. These two spiritual domains are also called different kingdoms. The Kingdom of Light and the kingdom of darkness. Again day and night are symbolic references to two separate and distinct spiritual states or places to be. Even though we walk the same planet with those who are still in darkness we are not of the darkness and darkness is no longer ruling our hearts and minds. To be in the world but not of the world as the Bible says.
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 Satan and his demons are spiritual forces that rule the darkness of the world around us. This verse clearly confirms that Satan is the moon, the lesser light, the ruler of the darkness that we referred to from Genesis 1. A ruler clearly implies a kingdom, a kingdom of darkness. Satan has been trying to establish his own dominion and kingdom outside of God since the beginning when sin was found in him.
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.
In this verse in 1st John we are told for those who are in the light that the darkness has passed. It is interesting to note that when the lights are on you don’t have any darkness. But this verse also tells us that Jesus is the “true light”. The Sun of Righteousness has arisen in our hearts and He is shinning a true light that we might see the truth. It is interesting that the characteristics of the moon is used to describe Satan symbolically. The moon has no life or produces any light of itself. The only reason we can see the moon at night is because it reflects or masquerades as an object of light. The moon is a pretender and shadow caster and a false light. It is so different than the sun that is the key to the source of our life on this planet. But as the Bible says, men who love the darkness are deceived by it and succumb to the trickery of the ruler of the darkness. But here is some good news and hope for those that are in the darkness:
Eph 5:14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
You see God says that those who are in the darkness are simply asleep and capable of waking up and seeing the light. This is a very strong typology and the spiritual information is significant. Pray for those in the darkness to wake up and see the light of day. To turn and allow Christ to arise in their hearts. Again if people do this they are translated into the light and the life of God. If they refuse to turn they are already dead. That is a very sad state of many people in the world today.
There are many other verses in the Bible that speak to us on this subject of Day and Night and I would suggest that you get your Bible search program and look for the key words, like day, night, darkness, light, sleep and any other word that you can think of that are associated with these spiritual realms. By studying the subject you will better understand why people don’t see Christ like you see Christ. Why they have been turned off when the light shines in on them. Jesus told us that “now ye are the lights of the world” so it is our responsibility to be a light to others. But this should be done in a Godly manner using the same ways that God worked through Jesus. Learn to be like Jesus and walk like Jesus and you will get others attention by just being so radically different than they are. Here is a quick chart of some of the lessons we have learned about the spiritual realms of Day and Night:
Day And Night Characteristics
| DAY | NIGHT |
| Light | Darkness |
| Sun Rules the Day | Moon Rules the Night |
| See | Blind |
| Awake | Sleep |
| Sober | Drunk |
| Life | Death |
| Good | Evil |
| Love | Hate |
| True Light | False Light |
| Greater Light | Lesser Light |
| Righteousness | Unrighteousness |
| Power of God | Power of Satan |
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons, you can continue with “Part 3“.
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 4
(Ver 2.4) This is Part 4 in a very advanced Bible study series on the Book of Revelation concerning chapter 12 and the True Identity of the Woman. This woman was described by God with a crown of 12 stars, clothed in the Sun and standing with her feet on the moon. We have covered so very much important information on this subject already. There is absolutely no way that I can teach it again today. Therefore I would strongly recommend, if you have not read from the beginning that you stop and begin your study with “Part 1“.
INTRODUCTION AND QUICK REVIEW
I knew this subject would take a lot of effort to get people to begin to understand it and accept it. The main reason for this resistance is that I have never heard anyone else teach the chapter this way. We have been using very important new Bible revelations that are focused upon 6 key symbolic elements that surrounded the woman. These were the crown on her heard, the sun as clothing on her body and the moon that was found under her feet.
This is now the fourth lesson on the subject in the search for the true identity of the woman in Revelation 12. There are so many diverse opinions to who this symbolic woman in Revelation 12 represents and all of these can produce a presupposition that can become a mental stronghold. These prejudices can be used by Satan to block any new information from entering our human mind. Any previous knowledge on a subject can potentially produce a state of human “bias”. “Prejudice and bias is a human condition that occurs when someone is prejudging someone or somethings before all of the facts are given, known and understood.
For example, many people today hate the Jewish people and most of these haters have never really even met a Jewish person and talked with them. That is usually one form of racial prejudice, injustice and bias that is easily utilized by Satan due to our ignorance of not knowing the full truth. This type of hatred must have been passed down from someone’s parents, or from teachers, or from other groups of influence that we associate with. This type of prejudice does not come from birth or from God. Almost every little child if raised in a good family without prejudice, will like everyone regardless of their gender, race, education or whatever. But, this open early attitude of like and trust can change when someone does or says something evil to us personally. Then there can come a new problem of thinking that everyone that is similar to them, is the exact same type of evil. This is called lumping everyone of the same type of category to be all equally good or evil with knowing any of them very well. What a complex world we live in.
There is really so much more to explore on this subject of the woman in Revelation 12. We have only touched on a few of the subjects and there are so many more questions to ask and answer. Why is the woman pregnant? Who is the child? Why does she appear in heaven first in verse 1 before any other description? I try to write and teach using progressive revelation, where truth builds upon truth. This means if you missed the beginning lessons you missed the foundation to all the other building blocks. I don’t claim to have all of the answers, but I’ll tell you what I do know and we will trust the Spirit of God to answer the questions that have not yet been answered.
In Part 1 we focused on the answering the question of when these events occur and found God said they are in the future. We continued to study and discovered the identity of the “Sun” clothing to be Jesus Christ the ruler of the Kingdom of Light. We have also found why this woman is clothed with the Sun. Then in Parts 2 and 3 we talked about the moon being the ruler of the darkness, a kingdom that is directly opposed to God’s kingdom of light. Then we looked at the specific meaning of how the moon is found in relation to the woman as being under her feet. I believe this is so very important to understand what this means.
I have shown scriptures that spoke about the church bruising the head of the serpent (Satan). I talked about Jesus delegating His authority to the church to tread on (walk on or over) the serpent (Luke 10:19) who we know is Satan (Rev 12:9). I then showed how Jesus today is seated at the right hand of Majesty in heaven, still waiting for all of His enemies to be made His footstool (Acts 2:35, Heb 1:13). All of these are scriptural references, patterns and pointers that God uses to help us identify the woman in Revelation 12. Today we are going to go into more detail concerning how the books of Genesis and Revelation are divinely designed to be connected bookends. We were introduced to this concept previously. But since this is a potentially new concept, I believe we need more information and that requires a deeper study. Let us get started.
GOD’S GENESIS AND REVELATION CONNECTIONS
I want to readdress some things that were potentially new to some people. Previously, I talked about the “seed of the woman” found in Genesis 3:15 as possibly being a spiritual seed and the woman being a prophesied picture of the church. Today in this lesson, I want to teach some things that I believe the Lord has taught me on this subject that could potentially help us to see some things from a new and fresh spiritual perspective. These are absolutely fascinating and completely related to our subject of the identity of the woman as being related to the Genesis 3-woman prophecy. This is why I called this section “God’s Genesis and Revelation Connections”.
In Revelation 12, the very first verse is focused upon our suspect mystery woman in question. But we can also see and know that the very last verse 17 is about the same woman. In fact, it is very important to see that at least 10 of the 17 verses of Revelation 12 mention the woman directly. She and the dragon are the two primary subjects.
Also, note that there is a new truth that I did teach you before. The Greek word that occurs in 10 verses in Revelation 12 for “woman” is G1135 and yes, it is correctly translated as woman. But it is normally associated to be a married woman called a “wife”. Ok, you may think that this does not really help us that much because after all, the woman is pregnant. And all of our suspect women candidates were all married wives. But I still feel like this is important to study.
From this information we learn that this woman in Revelation 12 is not an unmarried woman or more specifically not a virgin. Or we could say more positively that she is a woman in covenant with a man. Finally, notice that this Greek word G1135 translated as woman in Revelation 12 is again used in Revelation 19 to describe the Lamb’s wife. But this time the word was chosen by translators to say “wife”. Just keep that in your mind as we continue. I believe this could be a significant connection to apply to our study.
I have mentioned previously the direct connection of Revelation 12 to Genesis 3 by God’s designed purpose. God designed the Bible with concealment of related subjects, by spreading out much of the connected information for us to discover by searching the Bible. We are so very blessed to live in the last days when computers, phones and tablets are available to help us in this task. Remember, Daniel 12:4 informs us that in the last days knowledge will increase. God knew computers would exist and He prophesied it accordingly. Praise the LORD!
We understand truth connections do exist simply because the book of Genesis was written by Moses nearly 1600 years earlier than the book of Revelation which was written by John. These two men did not know each other personally, yet their books go together with exact precision. I’m going to repeat something that I have said several other times. But it is important to know and understand. In the book of Genesis, God usually introduces us to every major Biblical subject. Then in the book of Revelation God concludes the discussion on these subjects to conform to how He desired them to be and remain from the beginning. That is why I like to call them bookends. It is like a modern fiction author writing the introduction to the characters and subject in chapter 1 and then concluding with the last chapter and all of the surprises, twists and turns.
The information from the chapters, books and authors that come in between the book of beginnings and the book of the revealing can also provide us additional clues to the subject in question and they usually do. This introduction and conclusion of divine subject information is popularly known as the “Laws of First and Last Mention”.
We need to notice in Genesis 3 the direct connections found in our woman suspect subject study. In Genesis 3:15, we can see that God is introducing us to 1) a woman (other than Eve), 2) her seed, 3) Satan called a serpent, and 4) Satan’s seed. Then in addition to these main characters there is a described 5) great prophesied enmity (hatred) between them. It would probably be good to go back and reread the entire chapters of Genesis 3 and Revelation 12 to see the common subjects, noun and verb connections. Make a list of nouns, verbs and adjectives and then compare the two lists. Sometimes subjects are implied and not directly mentioned so it is good to note the implications. For example, in Revelation the woman is said to be a pregnant wife, and this would imply a husband, even though he was never mentioned directly in the chapter. Let’s examine some of the direct important connections that I found next when reading.
In reading Genesis 3:1 we should easily learn of God’s introduction of “the serpent”. We are never told who this creature is, or if he is literal, or symbolic in this chapter. There are several other Bible studies on this subject that contain additional information, on the subject of the serpent. But we can conclude and believe that this serpent in Genesis 3, was only a symbol for Satan and he was not physically manifested in the garden through a body of a physically created beast of the field. I would highly recommend you go read the Bible lesson “Genesis 3 – Was there a Literal Talking Snake in the Garden”.
We learn from the introduction of the serpent in Genesis that there is a connection to Revelation 12 because this unknown serpent is finally defined and identified to be the dragon in Revelation 12:9. Because God chooses to give us the true definition and identity of the “old serpent” as being the dragon and Satan we should automatically begin to examine what else could also be connected here in these two chapters. This is how God gives us clues to discovering truth, and it is amazingly wise.
This direct connection teaches us clearly, that this “old serpent” in Genesis 3 had to be a symbolic representation for the now implied much larger symbolic “red dragon” in Revelation 12. Both the serpent and the dragon are symbolic names and descriptions of the same evil being named Satan. Also note that there are two verses in Revelation that define the serpent’s identity. Ask yourself, could both of these be a connection? These verse definitions are Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20:2. These are the only two verses (currently know) in the Bible where God chose to define the true identity of the “serpent” introduced in Genesis 3. This is a very common method that God uses to hide truth in the Bible for us to find. God will talk about a subject in one place and then will suddenly define the subject in a completely new and different place later in the scriptures. This can even occur in a completely different book using a new inspired author like we find in the book of Revelation.
It is just interesting to note that these two referenced definitions of Satan occur in the vicinity of two described women. Revelation 12 is where the woman is mentioned first and then the dragon is introduced with the connection of the serpent definition. Both occur together within one verse in the same chapter. Notice in Genesis 3:1, the serpent occurs first and then immediately followed with him speaking to a woman. This is typical bookend patterns. I pray you know what bookends look like. I placed a sample picture in this paragraph to help. Bookends exhibit a pictured image, but in the reverse order. Wow, that is very similar to what we see in these two chapters. I do not believe that is a coincidence.
Then in Revelation 20 we find the dragon and the serpent definition being preceded again in Chapter 19 by another woman. But this woman in Revelation 19 is called the “Lamb’s Wife”. The word “wife” was the same Greek word translated as “woman” in Revelation 12. Isn’t that interesting? I do not believe that these are accidents either. These are the signs of highly intelligent design connecting related subjects and patterns together.
But, in Revelation 19 and 20 there is a new person that comes between the woman and the dragon. He is the LORD Jesus coming back to the earth with His saints riding on a white horse. Since chapters and verses were numbered and added by imperfect humans long after the writings of the scripture, we can understand that Revelation 19 and 20 are still connected together by verse association and context.
I am not making a fixed declaration of doctrine or a statement of “I’m right and you are wrong” type of conclusion. But I believe that both women mentioned near the dragon and serpent definitions are the exact same woman/wife. I hope you find it very interesting where and how God put them close together for us to discover and learn from.
While it would be nice to go through all of the 10, Revelation 12 verse references today of the woman, we will not because of the increase of the size of the lesson. However, let’s change our focus in Revelation 12, to the woman found again in verse 17 for what God reveals to us to be more directly connected words and subjects found in Genesis 3. This is the last verse in the chapter, and it would appear the subject changes in Revelation chapter 13 to something new.
Revelation 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
I personally see so many similar subject subjects, characters, descriptions, nouns, adjective and verbs as what we found in Genesis 3:15. This might not be an exact quotation, but the synonymous comparisons are amazingly parallel. We should all be able to see how there are enough overlaps for us to confirm that they are speaking of the same subjects. Can we notice what it says?
Verse 17 starts with a statement that declares Satan to be very angry with this woman. The statement or word in the KJV is actually “wroth” (G3710) and it means to be enraged and angry. That really sounds analogous and synonymous to God’s phrasing of “enmity” and “hatred” (H342) we found in Genesis 3:15. I know that these are slightly different words, but they synonymously connect us with a similar meaning of hatred toward two enemies. Next, we then see within the context of this verse that Satan is said to be at “war” with the remnant of this woman’s seed. Again, this signifies an adversary relationship with the seed of a woman. We learn from this that Satan and the woman are direct enemies in conflict against each other.
That statement is absolutely essential to see and understand, “….and went to make war with the remnant of her seed”. Did you notice that we have been talking about the “seed of the woman”? In Genesis 3 we clearly observe scripture where God prophesies that Satan, and his seed will be at odds with a woman and her seed. Isn’t that what Genesis 3:15 said? God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between her seed and your seed”. Fascinating, isn’t it? Clearly this is not a chance occurrence.
Here in Revelation 12:17 we have God’s very specific mention of 1) a woman, 2) her “seed”, and 3) Satan (the serpent). But this time it is in clear context and relationship to a new symbolic woman revealed in Revelation 12. Or is it a new woman? I have concluded from this information God is connecting the Revelation 12:17 woman with the Genesis 3:15 woman and that they are the exact same woman being spoken of by God. Therefore, whoever the Genesis 3:15 woman represents, the Revelation 12:1 woman must also represent. I believe that God was first introducing us to her in Genesis 3:15 and is now confirming the fulfillment of the prophesied pattern here in Revelation 12. This must be the same woman that God was talking about in Genesis 3:15. We should be able to see that there are too many connections being given to us in these two chapters by divine design and purpose to deny it.
Now how does this verse Revelation 12:17 end? The ending words of the chapter provides us a clear window to the view of the identity of the woman. Who does this verse claim that the Revelation 12 woman is? God in this verse gives us two very specific dependent qualifications for the identity of the Revelation 12:1 woman. These are two distinguishing characteristics of determined truths that must be applied correctly in order to understand (interpret correctly) the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 and here they are:
- She keeps the commandments of God
- She has the Testimony of Jesus Christ
How can we read these statements and not know who God is talking about? Does this describe the Old Covenant natural nation of Israel who practices Judaism? Perhaps you see that it does. If so, please explain why you see it this way to us. Where can you find verses that back this belief? Have you seen any that describe this natural nation of Israel, have succeeded in following all of the laws and the commands of God? It is interesting that only Jesus Christ succeeded 100%. Praise the LORD!
Of course, we might say the same thing about the church also. Has the New Covenant Bride of Jesus Christ completely followed every command? I don’t know of any Christian that is yet perfect and never makes a mistake or sinned. Do you know one? I believe Jesus was the only one and we all should be rising to His living example. But Christians do have an advantage over the Old Covenant. True Christians should be following Jesus Christ their Great Shepherd and listening to His voice on a daily basis (John 10:27). Christians should have the Spirit of Christ living on the inside of them guiding them and this is the help that we need to become more like Him. Also, there are many natural Jewish people that have become Christians by believing in Jesus. The church began with 120 Jewish people in an upper room in Jerusalem (Acts 2) and then they began to spread to Gentiles later with God’s help. So, no one is being anti-Semitic at all. We love all people especially the Jewish people and we want everyone to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus.
Every human has the opportunity to repent and believe in Jesus Christ to be saved. This begins the walk with Him. When we start down this narrow path, we should be led by the Holy Spirit to become like Him and that means to become holy. Now that is when we change to begin to possess the “testimony of Jesus Christ” as God reveals to us in Revelation 12:17. Ask yourself this question; “Does Natural Israel have the testimony of Jesus Christ?” Maybe some teach and believe that this will come to fruition in the tribulation because Revelation mentions the 144,000 from every tribe to prove that will occur. We can’t dispute that. But we should believe that this woman mentioned in Revelation 12 will have Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female (1 Cor 12:13, Gal 3:28) and we will all jointly be called the “Bride of Christ”.
I’ll briefly discuss another factor of Grace that is important to know. We are not made righteous because we are perfect. We are made righteous by Grace. It was a gift. 2 Corinthians 5:21 informs us that “He was made sin who knew no sin, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him”. Wow, that is amazing. I do not have time to teach this subject fully. Just understand righteousness was a gift, but it was given so that we could change to become dead to sin aka holy, like Him (1 Peter 2:24).
Then there is another verse in the middle of chapter 12 of Revelation that is also related to the identity of the woman with her enemy relationship to the serpent and the dragon:
Revelation 12:11 – And they overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
When I read this verse, I see the corporate church described as an overcoming, victorious body of believers. This can only be describing those that have received the Lamb of God as their personal savior and Lord (Jew, Greek, male, female, bond or free). This must be speaking of people that have applied and appropriated the shed blood of the Lamb of God to the doorposts of their spiritual hearts. When someone is described as having overcome something, that denotes a clear sign of victory at someone else’s ominous defeat. Here we have another confirming picture of the woman in Revelation 12: 1 standing with her feet upon the moon (Satan). Currently there is still just one woman in the Bible suspect list that qualifies to be this woman and it still is only the church the Lamb’s wife!
I would also like to make another quick point about Revelation 12:11. The blood of the Lamb, was just one enemy overcoming factor. The second part of that verse says “… and the word of their testimony”. Do you realize what that says or at least implies very heavily? The Greek word translated as “word” in this is G3056 and it is transliterated as “logos”. The definition literally means “something spoken” but it is used in reference to the Word of God numerous times. It is specifically used by Jesus in Mark 4:20 to describe the “seed” that was sown on good ground to produce fruit. This means real Christians.
We have just discovered a new connection to the woman in Revelation 12. I believe that Satan is in an all-out battle with anyone that professes the Word (seed) of God. Therefore, when we get to Revelation 12:17 I believe this is who Satan is fighting against on the earth. There will be people that were not truly saved after the rapture takes place that will understand what a mistake they have made and attempt to come back to the LORD. These people will have a very difficult time on the earth, but God will help them.
Notice in Revelation 12:15 when God is trying to help these people left on the earth that we are told that Satan the serpent spews water like a flood out from his mouth to try to overcome the woman. Wow, please realize this flood represents “spoken words”. The words could be lies, they could accusations, they could be threats, tricks and deceptions. There are a lot of tactics that could be used to try to get people to turn from their beliefs. However, again God helps the woman by opening the earth to swallow his words. Again, we see a prophecy that they overcame Satan by applying the blood and speaking the Word.
We have just learned of two weapons that can be turned against our enemy Satan. This applies today as well as during the tribulation. These weapons can be transferred back into us wearing the Armor of God. We are told to wear this armor in Ephesians 6. I believe all of the armor of God is based upon the Word of God. So, we have just confirmed how this chapter 12 of Revelation is in parallel to the Genesis 3:15 prophecy. We definitely have a woman versus a serpent and her seed (words) against his seed (words). But let’s go into some verses about the blood next. How many scriptures in the New Testament can you recall that speak of the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ?
Romans 5:9 – Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
1Co 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
Eph 1:7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Eph 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
Col 1:14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Hebrews 9:12 – Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
These are just a representative sampling of verses in the Bible that speak of the work of the blood of Jesus for His church. Understanding the power of the blood of Jesus is an essential part of a successful and victorious walk with Christ on the earth. Knowing what the blood of the Lamb purchased is critical to knowing who you are in Christ. Understanding the purpose of the blood of Christ is essential to a successful earthly Christian life. After understanding these verses, I hope that you can see the direct relationship to the descriptive qualities of the woman especially being clothed with the Sun of Righteousness in Revelation 12:11.
I am not going to go through every verse, but I would like to make a quick point on the first verse from Romans 5:9. Did you notice the connection from the church appropriating the shed blood of Jesus to be justified and to us missing the tribulation? I know it does not say tribulation but please understand this is when the wrath of God will be poured out on the ungodly upon the earth. This 7-year time period is divided into two 42-month periods. The greater tribulation occurs at the last 3.5 years. But yet I believe the church will not be here for any of it if we overcame Satan already using the blood of Jesus and God’s Word. It is a mystery of sorts when people believe the tribulation will occur with some even thinking that God will send His beloved bride through His time of wrath and judgement. But what loving husband would do that to His bride/wife?
If God did this He would violate His own written word. Remember in Ephesians 5 God instructs husbands to love their wives like Christ loves the church. So, if Christ sends His bride through brutal judgment to be murdered then we should do the same! I am being very sarcastic with that last comment. No, we should not do that at any time. Therefore, is the church the bride of Christ? I believe she is! Is the church going to encounter God’s fierce wrath? Not according to the Bible. Wow let’s please wake up and see the true heart of God.
Finally, here is what the Bible says in relation to the qualifications of the identity of the woman described in Rev 12:17. In these verses we will see instructions for the church to obey God’s commandments. God told Israel the basic same things, but this time in the New Covenant He came inside the hearts of people removing their hard hearts of stone to place tender hearts of flesh. This is where He writes His laws on them for us to follow. I just quoted a lot of Old Testament prophetical statements written about the church. But let’s read the instruction in the New Testament:
1Jn 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
Joh 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
Joh 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Joh 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
We can see from these sample verses that the Church has been directed (commanded) to keep God’s commandments. They all say something like, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. This is how we know we love God, because we keep His commandments. We know of course that this does not mean that the Church is supposed to keep the law of Moses, but rather the new law of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught us that all the law is summarized in two statements. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and then love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus gave the church a new commandment to love one another. This new commandment fulfills all of the Old Testament law. If you love your neighbor, you are not going to steal from them, you are not going to cheat them, you are not going to commit adultery with their spouse, you are not going to do anything that will harm them or cause them pain, emotionally, physically, mentally or spiritually. This is the law of LOVE! So let’s look at scriptures concerning those who have the testimony of Jesus Christ, who could this describe?
1Co 1:6 Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
2Ti 1:8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
Rev 1:9 I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Rev 19:10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Here are just a few of the scriptures related to those who have the testimony of Jesus Christ. We can see that the testimony of Jesus Christ was confirmed in the church members of Corinth. We can see Paul’s instruction to Timothy for him not to be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then in Revelation 1:9 we can see that John was imprisoned on Patmos for having the testimony of Jesus Christ. Finally in Revelation 19:10 in context with the description of the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb, the angel of the Lord tells John not to worship him, but worship God with his brothers that also have the Testimony of Jesus Christ.
So, we have seen numerous scriptures that indicate directly and indirectly that the church are the people that are supposes to keep God’s commandments and keep the testimony of Jesus Christ. They were also confirmed to be people that must overcome the serpent (Satan) using the blood of Jesus and the Word (Seed) of God. So, we can see from all of these descriptive elements that this certainly narrows the potential identities of the woman in Revelation 12 to only one woman. Using the Word of God to explain the Word of God is the key to understanding the Bible. Perhaps you will join me in my next lesson. Thank you for reading and commenting and may God Bless you tremendously with the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing Christ Jesus. Amen.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to Part 5.
Why Did Jesus Leave Heaven and Come To the Earth?
(Ver 1.3) There are several possible answers to this question and I am only going to address one of them today in this Bible study. I have already established the fact that Jesus was God present in the flesh in other Bible lessons. Therefore, I will not repeat that information again today. Just know that God the supreme creator, became a human male and was born into the world in a Bethlehem manger approximately 2000 years ago. Jesus walked the planet in the form of human flesh for approximately 33 years and was then willingly crucified on a cross by the Roman Empire and the captive nation of Israel. That was just a quick synopsis of some of the Bible Christian theological basics that you should already be intimately familiar with. But, why was it necessary for God/Jesus to come to earth in the flesh and to shed His blood? What transpired or made it necessary for only God Himself to appear on the planet to solve the problem? Couldn’t God just create something new, or say something or do something or send someone else? Isn’t God still God? Why was it so important for the supreme God to do this personally? I think that is an amazing question to consider and one that if you really understood the answer, would explain so many other questions that you have yet to figure ask.
Today I will introduce you to just one of the most important answers to this question and I hope that you can at least begin to grasp these basic concepts. What we see from the Bible is that God had a problem. Of course we know that God is all powerful, all knowing, ever present and capable of doing practically anything. I did say “practically anything” and that will probably rock some people’s religious boats (minds). You see extremely religious people like to believe that God is capable of doing anything and everything and there is nothing that is impossible for Him. That would be a great truth if that was what the Bible really said, but since the Bible doesn’t say that I can’t agree with any of that kind of thinking. You see in one part of the Bible God says that it is impossible for Him to lie (Heb 6:18). If you understand what the definition of “impossible” means it clearly states this will never happen under any circumstances. I’ve heard some very religious theological ignorant people who have tried to explain this away using human reasoning that whatever God says, if it was not previously true when He said it that it would become true after He said it. After all He is an omnipotent God and truth is always relevant to what God wills. In other words if God says the sky is Green in color when it is not, then yesterday the sky might have been blue but tomorrow it would suddenly appear to us as green. So God would change things to fit what He said today and if tomorrow He wants it a different way He would change to cause it to be different. However, that reasoning just does not conform and balance with other scriptures either. The Bible clearly says that God is God and that He does not change (Mal 3:6). In other words He is a constant and consistently good God who does not change His mind or do one thing today and another totally different opposite thing tomorrow. I guess I got off of the main subject so let’s get back to why Jesus came to earth in the flesh.
Here is a key verse that informs us of at least one of the main reasons why God came to earth in the flesh. Open the eyes of your spirit to see what the Holy Ghost has to say to you about this reality. This verse is found in 1 John and it states the following:
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.
We can determine from the context of this verse that one of the primary themes being communicated to us is concerning SIN! We can see that God is telling us about the source of sin, how and where sin originated. This verse calls the source the devil, but this is just another name for the ancient serpent also called Satan. If you read Revelation 12:9 you will see the true identity defined of this evil one, with several of his other names and symbolic descriptive titles being also connected together. What we begin to learn from this verse is the origin of God’s problem and the root cause for every evil that has entered into our world. I know that some are still struggling to see how God could have a problem. I’ve heard many religious minded theological people say that God is simply using Satan as a pawn and Satan doesn’t do anything unless he first checks with God and asks permission and God grants it or rejects it. In other words God is in ultimate control of everything and everyone and nothing happens unless God has a specific plan and purpose for it. That deceptive reasoning is ignorance gone to seed and borderline stupidity. That line of thinking doesn’t fit what God says in the Bible and doesn’t match in a balanced way with the description of a God who is called LOVE (1 Jn 4:8). Many humans have a very perverted concept of what true LOVE is because they based their concepts of love on their experiences here in this world. They then misapply these wrong concepts to explain why God does or does not stop bad things from happening in our world. When the earthquake hit Haiti I heard one minister on TV say something like this was God’s judgment for their sinful lifestyle. In other words God specifically caused this event to happen to punish some very wicked people. That is just idiotic when people think like that. We haven’t really talked about why Jesus came to earth, but it was for many reasons and one of them was to pay the price for all of our sins, past, present and future. His blood was a ransom payment for the sin of the world. So if God is now killing people because of their sin, then why did He come in the first place? We are all sinners, why didn’t He just kill us all and start over?
So let’s get back to our primary Bible verse of the day. In this verse it tells us that the Son of God was made manifest because God had to destroy the works of the devil or Satan. If Satan was the problem why didn’t God just throw Satan into hell and that would be the end of him? I think that is an excellent question that people do not know the answer to either. If you understood the answer to that question you would realize that God has a major problem on His hands, but one that He is still capable of solving. The term “destroy” in this verse has a different meaning than what most people think of when they think of something that has been destroyed. To destroy something in our world would mean that it has been obliterated or that it was blown to millions of little pieces. But that is not what this Greek word (G3089) is saying to us. This word translated in the KJV as “destroy” actually means to “loosen”. To loosen something implies that something was first held captive or prisoner that needed to be freed. Knowing that alone dispels the theory that God is in control of everything in this world. If whatever was held captive was in God’s control, God would not have had to come personally to earth to “loosen” it, would He? So who or what was being held captive? We can find the answer in the Bible:
Isa 52:2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
This scripture in Isaiah is prophetically speaking to the New Jerusalem city described in Revelation as the Lamb’s wife. You can clearly see that if you read and study the context. But notice the instructions given to this woman. She is told to get loose from the bonds around her neck. That implies a woman who is a prisoner or a slave to something or someone. If the human race was in covenant with Satan and in the bonds of sin, as I believe we were, then you can begin to see the problem that God is faced with. God cannot do anything to Satan without doing the exact same thing to all of his captives. But it is really more complex than that. You see I believe that God was also in covenant with Satan. So God could not do anything to Satan that He wouldn’t also have to do to Himself. When you start to think along these lines you begin to see a lot of things in the Bible differently. You begin to think in a new way and see things that God is revealing to us in some very important verses in the Bible. For example, God tells us that Satan would not have crucified Jesus if he would have known what was going to happen or result from His death (1 Cor 2:8). Apparently God did something unexpected that was very strong and powerful through Jesus’ death on the cross and when He was raised from the dead. This one man’s action caused Satan to regret greatly killing him. The Bible says that God used death to destroy him that had the power of death. We learn from the study of the book of Ruth that death represents a force that breaks a covenant relationship. In most marriage ceremonies there is a clause spoken “until death do us part”. That means in our marriage covenant relationship we will always be together until one of us dies. Since Jesus was God in the flesh we can begin to understand that Jesus through His death severed any previous covenants that He was in. God used death as a legal termination of the covenants that He was in prior to His death. When Jesus was raised from the dead He was now legally able to enter into a New Covenant that did not include Satan in the family. Jesus said something very profound after he was raised from the dead and it is found in this statement “all power both in heaven and in earth has been given to me” (Mat 28:18). But, I thought Jesus was God and that God already had all power both in heaven and on the earth? Why would it be necessary for God to transfer all His authority to the risen Lord Jesus? Do you understand that difficulty presented in this information? Apparently we learn from this statement that God did not have all authority in both realms or it would not had been necessary for it to be given it to Jesus. Do you see how complex the Bible can get on such a simple subject? Let me show you another verse found in the Bible that further confirms this reality of truth:
Heb 2:8 Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.
Here we have another paradox being presented. God says everything has been placed under the feet of Jesus and then reveals not everything is yet there. Do you understand that statement? Well, probably not! First again why is it necessary for everything to be placed under Jesus if everything was already under God in heaven? This verse goes along with what Jesus said to us Matthew 28:18 that ALL power has been given to Him but yet we still read in many other verses that Satan remains present on the earth and that Satan still has power (Luke 10:19). This presents some very difficult scriptural and theological conflicts to resolve.
What we see from this short lesson is the fact that God had a problem. God’s problem originated with Satan or Lucifer as he was also called. Satan did something that caused the human race to be in a terrible self-solvable dilemma. Satan had corrupted God’s creation and became the “god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4). Being called the god of this world implies that he had taken control over everything that God had previously given to Adam in Genesis 1:26. However, God had a planned solution in place already from the beginning to get it all back in a legal way that not only solves our problem, but also solved God’s problems simultaneously. Our problem was sin and death and God’s problem was primarily Satan. God used Jesus to fix both of these problems. Jesus redeemed us from the consequences of sin. Through His shed blood our sacrificial lamb was slain and the payment for sin was made once for all. But through the death of Jesus on the cross, God’s covenant with Satan was also terminated and now Satan can be thrown into hell legally. I know I said a lot and I quoted a lot of scriptures and didn’t give you references to a bunch of them, I’m sorry about that. I also know this is a lot of new things to think about and study in the Bible and I hope that you do the research to see if these things that I said are true or not. I challenge you to study for yourself and not to take my word for anything.
Gen 3:15 The Seed of the Woman! The Seed of the Serpent!
(Ver 2.6) This is Part 9 in the Bible study series on Understanding Genesis 3. If you have not read the series from the beginning you might benefit from starting at the beginning and reading “Part 1” first. I have given some important key points in the first lesson in the series that is needed for you to understand this lesson completely. This lesson concerns the words spoken to the serpent and you need to understand who this serpent is identified to be in order to understand how to interpret these words in this verse. One of the keywords in my title today is the subject of “seeds”. I have already touched on this subject in other Bible lessons that I have published, but since we are studying in Genesis 3, I feel that this needs to be discussed again so that people will understand it more thoroughly. It is disturbing to me how people can read the Bible and not see what it really says. In my opinion there are too many Christians that don’t have a clue what the Bible actually says. There is a great number of Christians who rely on others to tell them what to believe. If their preacher says it’s true then they are instantly on board with it without studying it for themselves. That kind of attitude has caused a bunch of people in the church to be deceived. Do not believe anything I say or anything anyone else says without you reading it in your own Bible and you seeing it for yourself; you must be able to determine if it is really true for yourself and no one else can do it for you. Here is today’s central Bible verse found in Genesis 3, let’s look at it carefully and consider what God says to us:
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
From the context of this scripture we know that God is speaking. This verse occurs after the man and his wife had sinned by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God is speaking to each participant in the ordeal in the reverse order of mention found in the chapter. If you read all of chapter 3 you will see that Satan (the serpent) is mentioned first, then the woman and finally Adam. But, God comes to the man first, since he is supposed to be in charge of the situation. Did you know if you are just a member of a church that God will not come to you and tell you how to run the church? God always communicates from the top down and not from the bottom up. I just threw that in for good measure; there is no extra charge for any new information that helps you personally. So if you look at this verse God is finally speaking directly to Satan who has initiated the problem. We know that in Chapter 3 of Genesis Satan is referred to in the terms of a symbolic “serpent”. That only means that there was not a literal talking physical snake in the garden during this chapter. If you don’t understand that statement you need to read my lesson on the subject called “Was There A Talking Snake In The Garden“. In that lesson I gave at least 4 sound Bible reasons why there could not be a literal talking serpent. I will not repeat that subject in this lesson to try to prove to you what I have already taught and confirmed with the Bible. If you do not understand there wasn’t a talking physical snake then go and read about it and then come back to study this subject about the seed of the woman. So we can see that God is speaking directly to Satan in reference to a woman. If you automatically try to assume that this woman is Eve, you would be totally wrong. Even though at this point in time Eve is the only physical woman on the planet, we can clearly see that God is speaking of a prophetic woman and this woman has to be a spiritual woman, since Satan is her spiritual opponent. A physical woman is not capable of stepping on the head of a spiritual being. If you think so, you would be wrong again. There are too many distinct differences between natural things and spiritual things for you to think otherwise. Let us start an analysis of the verse by reviewing the nouns in this verse and see what God has said to us. We can see that there are 8 primary nouns given to us in this verse. Here they are in order of mention:
- I (God)
- Enmity
- Thee (Satan, the serpent)
- Woman
- Seed of the serpent
- Seed of the woman
- Head
- Heel
If you look at my list and you study the verse you might notice that I left off two nouns. One being “it” and the other being “his”. These I believe are mistranslated words and do not reflect correctly the true meaning of the verse so I left them off for now. The first noun in Genesis 3:15 is “I” and this is God and God tells us and all the other participants what He was going to do as a result of their actions. This is the first thing that you should recognize, if God says something you can believe it will happen exactly like He said it would. We can see that this is one of the first direct statements of God’s plan of redemption that has far reaching implications. You can also see that this is God’s Will in action. God says “I will” and then tells you what He is going to do or make happen. Now, here is a list of the important verbs found in the sentence:
- Put
- Bruise
We can see that there are far fewer verbs given than there are nouns. Let’s start with the verse’s first verb “put”. We can clearly see that this is something that God says He will do. This word has a meaning “to place”. For example, you can “put” something on a shelf. You can “put” something in the refrigerator. But this verse says God will put something between two other direct nouns. The implication is given that God will change the order of something from one thing to another. You could say a reversal of roles, for example? You could also say this is a division or a separation of one noun from the other noun being separated with something in between. You might see this more clearly if you read my other blogs. What we need to do at this point is see who God is talking to and then to see what was placed between them to cause this separation.
Let’s start by looking at the second noun in Genesis 3:15 and this is “enmity” and this word clearly means “a hatred” or “hostility”. These are words normally between enemies. What we can clearly see at this point is that God says that He will put ”hatred” between the next two nouns. These nouns are of course the “serpent” and the “woman”. You can clearly see that God who has not identified who the woman is, has told Satan that there will be a hatred between him and her. In other words these two will become great enemies who will do battle. These are implied meanings derived from the chosen words and wording from this verse given to us by God Himself. Please note these important items and then notice the next two nouns in the verse. God seems to shift into talking about something new, or does He? I believe what we have here is a new point of view being given but, God is still talking about the same original two nouns. Notice what God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. So did God change subjects? We are still talking about the same enmity, right? So what makes you think that the “seed” of the serpent is separate from the serpent? Have you ever thought about that? You see if you logically conclude that the enmity is the same between the serpent and the woman as the enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, then you could say that God is still talking about the same two individuals. Let’s look at the very first verse in the Bible that talks about “seed” and see what it reveals to us by the law of first mention:
Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
What we discover is a basic principle of the nature of seeds. A seed is something that when planted produces something else. But it only produces, based upon the law of Genesis “after his kind“. In other words apple seeds produce apple trees and not orange trees. Now here is the really important part of the verse, it says that the “seed is in itself”. In other words you cannot separate the seed from the tree or the fruit; they are considered to be one. An apple tree will produce apples, that have seeds that when planted will cause there to be more apple trees that produce more apples, that have more seeds that go on and on. These are the basic Bible laws surrounding seeds. If you do not understand them you can go read my blog series on “Understanding Seeds”. The principles of seeds are quite simple but the implications are vast and complex. If Genesis 3:15 is talking about the seed of the serpent, you have to go back to Genesis 1 and apply the seed law principles and see that they are considered to be one in the same. The seed of the serpent is in himself. The serpent is representative of a spiritual tree that has fruit with seeds in it. These seeds can be planted and will cause to multiply and grow and become greater in number. Yet this multiplication system still demands that no matter how many that are produced from it, they all originated from the one. If you have never studied the Bible on the subject of “seed” you should because it is a wealth of information. Most everything that God does is based upon a seed principle. Jesus told us a parable of a man sowing seeds and said if you don’t understand this one you will not understand any other.
So let’s go a little further with what a seed is in the relationship to a woman. If you search the Bible you will find some very interesting statements. I’ve heard preachers get up and declare that the “seed of the woman” is Jesus of Nazareth. That would mean that the woman in Genesis 3:15 would have to be Mary. Mary was the physical mother of natural Jesus, yes? Did God ever put enmity between Mary and Satan? I think you are smart enough to see that this does not fit the scriptures that we can read. Then you could say that “the seed of the woman” is Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead and called the firstborn from the dead (Col 1:18). That would mean the woman in Genesis 3:15 is the “Heavenly Jerusalem” who we are told is the spiritual mother of Jesus Christ and the church (Gal 4:26) and I hope you can see that this doesn’t work either. God never put enmity between this woman and Satan. So the seed of the woman cannot be Jesus just from thinking logically along these lines. Before we go any further let me show you a verse in Genesis that I think is the first actual reference to a woman having seed. This will at least establish that a woman can have seed. I’ve heard many ministers say that a woman cannot have seed and that only a man or male has seed and they are thinking of sperm as being the only type of seed there is in the Bible. What people don’t realize is there are many different types of things in the Bible all called seeds. Here is just one of them:
Gen 4:25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
Hopefully you can see from this verse of scripture a principle being established. A child that is born of a woman is called her seed. Eve is called the mother of all living human beings since she was the first woman. Given modern DNA research, most have concluded that every human being has originated from this one woman they called “Eve”. This is a basic implementation of the seed principle from Genesis 1. But of course it is more complex than that. Adam and Eve were one flesh, meaning they were one body in the eyes of God. Adam’s sperm or male seed was implanted into his wife, she bore him a child and this child was also their seed. This seed has the potential to reproduce after the original pattern and produce more seed; it is an endless perpetual self-sustaining model of life on this planet. But we know that no matter how many seed are produced, they are still considered to be one with the original model from whom they originated from. Whatever Adam did everyone he produced did, it is a very extensive spiritual and physical law. The sum of the whole is always equal to one. All of the separate and individual parts are still one in the same in the eyes of God. You can learn this principle in the N.T. by reading 1 Corinthians 15:22, where God says “For as in Adam ALL die…”. Did you notice that verse said you were “IN” Adam? That is the powerful concept of the seed being in itself. That means whatever Adam did you also did and that is why death passed upon all humanity by the acts of just one man. This is God’s definition of the natural seed always being within itself, whatever your father did, you did principle. Let me give you another N.T. example of this spiritual and physical seed law:
Heb 7:9 And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.
Did you notice that Levi was in Abraham? Whatever Abraham did was what his future descendant Levi, also did. So when did Levi come into the earth? You should look at the genealogies given to us in the Bible and see that Levi was generations away from Abraham, yet Abraham paid tithes and therefore Levi paid tithes. We can confirm this by reading the next verse in Hebrews:
Heb 7:10 For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.
Hopefully you understand the principle of seeds a little bit better now. Levi is said to have paid tithes because his great grandfather paid tithes to Melchisedec. Levi a future descendant was in Abraham and therefore whatever Abraham did, Levi did. That is one of the most important things that you can learn from our lesson today and it is certainly indirectly related to our primary subject of who the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent is in Genesis 3:15.
So let’s approach the subject of the seed of the woman as being Jesus Christ but, from a different perspective. If the seed of the woman is Jesus Christ then who is the seed of the serpent? We know the serpent is Satan, but who is the seed of the serpent? You see you cannot say one type of seed is an individual male child without saying the other is also an individual male child. You must be consistent in your interpretations and not try to make one noun a specific object type and then try to change the definition of the other identical noun to make it to be something else entirely new, do you get it? So if Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 as many preachers have said, then who can the seed of the serpent be? I do hope you see the logic behind that question. What the Bible says matters, every word and every detail matters and then how you interpret the Bible also matters. If you are not being consistent and treating every word the same, then you are being selective in what you teach and therefore getting it wrong by default. So pay very close attention to every detail; then ask questions. When you read across a detail that you do not understand, start to formulate questions and make notes on them. You never know when you will be reading a verse in the Bible and suddenly realize that you just read the answer to your question you had a few days or weeks ago. So I hope you can see logically that the seed of the woman cannot be Jesus Christ, because we have not named the “seed of the serpent”. Here is another difficulty that I have with saying that Jesus is the seed of the woman, I have not found any verses in the Bible that says that Jesus bruised the head of the serpent. Can you find one? What I discovered in studying the Bible, is that it says Jesus sat down at the right hand of God waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool (Hebrews 10:13). What we learn from this one verse is that Satan (God’s enemy) is not yet completely under the feet of Jesus. Do you get it? So what is God waiting for? So let me ask you again who is the seed of the serpent? Is this Satan’s physical child? I don’t think so. But you have to be consistent, if one seed is a man child you have to make the other seed the same. This is just a basic law of correct Bible interpretation, be consistent and apply what you do equally across the board to each occurrence of the word. If a word occurs twice in one verse interpret them equally.
Getting back to the problem with this KJV translation of Genesis 3:15 I alluded to the fact that two nouns “it” and “his” were mistranslated because some translators thought they were speaking about Jesus Christ and this idea crept into the translation. The word “it” in this verse is a Hebrew feminine word that is actually translated as “her” or “she” many times in the Bible. You can see that in Genesis 3:12 when Adam says “the woman that you gave me, SHE gave me of the tree”. This “SHE” is the same Hebrew word, so SHE is a valid translation for this word. Search your Bible and see it for yourself. Then the term “his heel” does not have an actual Hebrew word associated with it that tells you the actual gender of the owner of the heel. In other words “her heel” would work for this verse equally as well and I believe it could be a much better translation. It totally depends on whose heel we are talking about doesn’t it? Look at your Bible and see if these are true. Is there a Hebrew word for “his” that has a Strong’s definition? I couldn’t find one! So I am convinced based upon other scriptures in the Bible which I haven’t given you here that this verse in Genesis 3:15 should end like this: “she shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel“.
If you need more scriptures I’ll give you a quick synopsis of more evidence from the Bible of who this woman is. In Luke 10:19 Jesus told his church “I give you power to tread upon serpents…“. Reading that verse you have all of the key elements and nouns repeated from Genesis 3:15. You have a woman, who is the church, you have the mention of the serpent who is Satan, and you then have the action verb of stepping on the serpent with your feet. This is just the exact same stuff that we read in Gen 3:15, using different words. I hope you can see it. Then there is another verse that is very critical to understand found in Romans 16:20, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly…“. Again we have a verse of scripture written to a woman (the Church) whose feet are to be used by God to bruise the head of Satan (the serpent).” You see, these two verses alone tell me that Jesus Christ did not accomplish this already and they confirm to me who is directly prophesied by God to complete this bruising of the serpent’s head. The Church is a spiritual woman, in covenant with Jesus Christ. Here is another perspective to consider, the church is called the “Body of Christ”. Jesus Christ is said to be the Head and the church is said to be His body (Eph 5). Where exactly are the feet located? Are your feet located on your head or on your body? So if God is going to use anyone to bruise the head of the serpent, would He not use His body? It’s not rocket science you just have to read and see what it says.
I have already blogged on most of the rest of this information when I gave you information about the woman in Revelation 12. Maybe I should rehash it again so that you can see it more clearly. You see the Bible in Revelation 12 speaks about a woman and since we are talking about a woman in Genesis 3:15 we should approach this woman as a potential candidate for the prophecy that God has given to us. You do not know it is not this woman do you? What I found absolutely fascinating was all of the clues given to us in Revelation 12 that fit the pattern of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15. First God is talking to the serpent when He prophecies in Gen 3. God actually reveals to us the true identity of the serpent in Revelation 12:9. Knowing this fact alone should give you some clues that God is revealing something that is much bigger in that Genesis 3 and Revelation 12 are related. You should be able to see that Genesis 3 and Revelation 12 are closely related if you study both chapters very closely. In Revelation 12 we have two primary nouns being repeated. These two nouns are the woman and Satan (the ancient serpent). The dragon we are told in Revelation 12:9 is definitely the “old serpent” so we can now see that the woman certainly could be the same woman being prophesied about in Gen 3. Now skip down to the last verse in Revelation 12 and notice another direct mention that is certainly not a coincidence.
Rev 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
So now we have some information that the dragon hates the woman. The dragon is said to be at war with the woman and that makes him and her enemies. What did God say in Genesis 3:15? God said that he would put “enmity” between you (the serpent) and the woman. Again we see some amazing parallels being spoken of. Then here is the real kicker, did you notice that verse in Revelation 12 spoke of the “seed of the woman” again? Satan was at war with the woman’s seed. Do you understand that statement? It certainly sounds like this is the prophesied woman in Genesis 3:15. If you do not understand how the heel and the head of the serpent come into play you need to stop here and go and read my blog on “The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12“. Once you realize that the woman in Revelation 12 is standing on the moon with her feet you will begin to understand this is the woman that God spoke of way back in the beginning. I know this is different than anything you have ever heard before, but yet if you can read with your eyes open you will see that it is all true. I pray that this has been a blessing to you and that you will pass it along to someone who can learn from it also. God Bless.
If you would like to continue to read in this series concerning the spiritual subjects hidden in Genesis 3 please go to “Part 10“.
Gen 3:5 You Shall Be As God Knowing Good and Evil!
(Ver 2.2) This is Part 5 in the series about Understanding Genesis 3. The Bible has so much information in it, it is challenging just to know what to teach. Genesis 3 is about the spiritual downfall of Adam and Eve. But there are a number of other good lessons to learn from this chapter also. I am shocked sometimes at how people don’t see what the Bible really says and I think today will be another example of that. You can tell if you have read my blogs on Genesis that we are faced with a challenge by God to recognize the difference between spiritual things and natural physical things being described to us. Many times men tend to look at everything in the Bible naturally, but since the author of the Bible is a Spirit, God’s perspective is the only one that should count. Most of the time wrong interpretations of the Bible revolve around private interpretations from the natural minds of men. But, if we use the Bible to help us determine the true meanings, we are far more likely to get it right. In my last blog on Genesis I talked about spiritual fruit being different than natural fruit. I gave you several scriptures that declare that it is not what we eat physically that causes us to sin. We can therefore conclude that God did not command Adam and Eve to not eat of a natural physical fruit tree in the Garden. We can further conclude that God when He was speaking of not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was telling them not to eat of a spiritual tree. If you didn’t realize it, God is more concerned with spiritual things than He is with natural things. People want you to save the planet, save the trees, save the environment, save the whales, etc., but God wants us to produce spiritual fruit and become a mature Christian, to be a laborer and to help prepare for His spiritual harvest. So when we read the Bible we need to become more spiritually aware and less naturally focused. Focus only on spiritual things in context with the subject given. Recognize how God applies natural things to give us glimpses into the spirit world.
Today I want to expand on verse 5 in Genesis 3. This verse has some profound truths written in it, that I believe we need to understand. This verse is Satan, the symbolic serpent speaking to the mind of Eve. If you didn’t know the serpent was a symbolic representation for a spiritual being, then you need to read my blog, “Was There a Talking Snake in the Garden?” Many times people overlook what Satan says because he is called the father of lies and they don’t realize that Satan will use the truth, if he thinks it will work to his advantage. Satan actually knows more truth than you do, that is why he can lie so well. Here are the words of Satan spoken to the mind of Eve as a thought:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Satan is of course very presumptuous to think that he knows what God knows. I do believe that God taught Satan everything that Satan knows, however, I do not believe that God taught him everything that God knows. I think people need to learn that lesson, if they don’t learn anything else in this blog. We then see a statement that declares that their eyes would be opened. I would hope that you could see that Satan was not speaking of their physical eyes, but Satan was referring to their spiritual understanding. Here is a scripture from the New Testament which speaks to us along these lines:
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,
Our spirits have the ability to see, perceive or as it says in this verse to understand. To see with our spirits is the ability of our spirits to understand the spiritual truths being spoken to us. The term is repeated to us in this verse “to know”. Isn’t that what Satan said to Eve? Satan told Eve that they would “know” good and evil. So what does this Hebrew word translated as “know” mean? If you have been reading my blogs you already understand the answer to that question. To “know” something is a covenant term. To know something represents an intimate sexual knowledge. God uses this same Hebrew word when He describes “Adam knew his wife and she had a son”. To “know” someone is to be in covenant with that individual. So what was Satan telling Eve? According to the wording and the underlying meaning, Satan said to Eve you will be just like God, in covenant with good and evil. I know I probably lost several readers with that statement, but if you keep reading in the chapter you will see that God did not contradict that statement, but He actually confirms it. You see if this was a lie or a deception of Satan, then God had the opportunity to confront the lie when He was talking to each of the participants after Adam had sinned. But, never do you see any confrontation or rejection of that statement in the chapter discourse. As you continue in the chapter you actually see that God confirms what Satan said to Eve in verse 22:
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
I should probably go back and address one modification that I made to the verse 5 translation before I talk about this verse 22. In verse 5 the word “gods” is the Hebrew noun “Elohiym”. This is a plural word that is often times used for one of the names of God. God being a triune being is a plural being and not a singular one. It is a complex paradox that God is directly called three personalities, but is still just one God. In contrast there are many gods, but there is one “Elohiym”, the Supreme God. In the first chapter of Genesis, this word “Elohiym” is translated as God around 26 times. So the KJV translators instead of making this word say “God” as they did the majority of other places in Genesis, they chose to make it say “gods”. But the problem with that reasoning was Adam and Eve were already gods, but they were gods that only knew good and not evil. The only thing that Adam and Eve would gain from eating this spiritual fruit was the covenant with evil and what a dumb mistake that was. So translators got the word wrong in verse 5 and focused in on the wrong noun. Instead of saying Adam and Eve were “elohiym” (gods) they should have just made it say “God”.
So why did I have to go into all of that explanation? Because if the translators would have just put these two verses, 5 and 22 together correctly they would have seen what God said in verse 22 “Look, the man has become like Me!”; in covenant with good and evil. God actually repeats exactly what Satan said would happen, so it could not have been a lie. God declares that Adam was now in covenant with evil and therefore we can determine based upon our knowledge of Bible covenants, Satan was now married to man. Whatever Adam was given was now given equally to Satan. There are many verses in the Bible that confirm this statement; I’ll give you one found in the temptation of Jesus:
Luk 4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
Here in the temptation of Jesus by Satan, Satan takes Jesus on a mental journey to the top of a very high mountain on earth. On the top of this mountain Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of this world. That would include every race, creed and inhabitant of the planet. There was nothing omitted or left out so that goes along with a true Bible covenant relationship between the two parties Adam and Satan. Then after showing Jesus these kingdoms, Satan makes this statement:
Luk 4:6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
We can clearly see that in Luke 4:6, Satan tells Jesus all of this which I just showed you has been given to me, and I have the power to give it to whoever I want. These were all true statements and Satan thought that he was in control of the situation, but God had a different plan. Now let me give you one more example of what I am saying found in 2 Corinthians:
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.
You see God shows us that one of Satan’s titles is “the god of this world” in this verse. Or actually I should say that this is the title that Satan stole from Adam and God just informs us of this. Adam when he was created was given dominion over all of the creation of God’s handy work. You can read this in the 1st chapter of Genesis as well as verses found in Psalms. God transferred complete control and responsibility over the planet to Adam and in effect made him the “god of this world system”. Adam had complete control over his own destiny and whatever he decided carried the decision for every one that descended from him. So after Adam dies, Satan becomes the “god of this world system”. Jesus gives us some very strong insight into this spiritual transaction between Adam and Satan in the book of John:
Joh 10:1 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
You can see from this statement a very powerful spiritual truth being revealed to us. Jesus is telling us that Satan did not enter into our world legally. He took advantage of Adam and Eve and entered in the world that God had given to them by deception. Jesus is calling Satan a thief that has robbed someone of something that didn’t belong to him. Jesus was also contrasting His presence on the earth as being legitimate, while Satan’s presence on the earth as being illegal. You see God could not come to the earth the same way that Satan did and just take back everything that was given to Adam, without being called a thief and become just as guilty as Satan. So we can see a puzzle being revealed to us. Jesus says whoever enters into the world by the door is legitimate. So what is this legal door into this world? It is only being born here by a natural woman that has given birth to you, and that makes you legally here. You have to be a direct descendent of Adam and Eve to be here legally. God is so very tricky and smart. God knew that He could come into the world and pay for our salvation, if He came as a son of Adam. So we have a man that was born into this planet that was both 100% man and 100% God and this was legal. So I got off track giving you some insight into Satan’s illegal entry and God’s legal introduction into our world. So let’s go back to Genesis and look at this covenant relationship.
What are the spiritual implications given to us from what we just learned? A Bible covenant relationship represents a marriage in the eyes of God. So Adam became married to Satan. Whatever God had given to Adam now belonged to Satan. After Adam’s death, Satan had complete control of it all. A converse truth was whatever Satan had now belonged to Adam, and that was really not a good trade. Adam was originally created to know only good, the things that God had provided for him. But now whatever happens to Satan will happen to Adam and vice versa. Fortunately for us, God had a plan of salvation that would destroy the works of the devil and make a separation from all the consequences that Satan now faces in the future. As soon as the prophesied 6000 year time table of Adam’s dominion is up, Satan will be cast out along with those who are now in covenant with him. The time is very short, and Satan knows his time of reigning on this earth is almost ended and guess why he is so very angry with the church. Lucifer who was once second only to God himself will not enjoy his eternal destiny.
We can see from a previous blog a conformation given to us in these verses in Genesis 3. God is in covenant with the angelic beings. This would include the good and the evil ones. In one of my last blogs I showed you that death is a legal separation of a covenant marriage relationship. Because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s covenant relationship with evil was terminated. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our salvation was confirmed. All of those who believe in Him will be saved, but all of those who do not will be damned with Satan. It is a covenant reality, you are either joined to Jesus Christ and one with Him, or you are joined with Satan and one with him. These are powerful truths and help to explain a lot of the hidden things found in the Bible.
I know I teach a lot of new things, that you have probably never heard anyone teach before. The disciples in the Bible made a statement that is very profound, they said “Silver and Gold have I not, but such as I have give I thee”. Just as the disciples could only give what they had, I can only give you what I have. This is just a simple but basic Bible truth; everyone gives from only what they have. I hope and pray you enjoyed my Bible lesson today and grasped something from it that you can hold on to. If you liked it please share it with others that can also benefit from knowing the truth. God Bless.
If you would like to continue in the lesson series on Understanding Genesis 3 please proceed to Part 6.
Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 4 Israel’s New Husband
(Ver 2.0) This is now Part 4 in a very advanced Bible study serious concerning Understanding Bible Covenants. This series is intended for spiritually mature Christians with an open mind that will commit to go and study the subject for themselves to verify if it is really true or not. Obviously by the title we have more controversial topics on covenants to discuss today. We have been discussing Bible covenants in some new terms using scriptures in the Bible that many have not seen before. I know this is a very deep subject and the complexities are vast. It is a very hard thing to accept new things when they are first revealed. I believe the natural human tendency is to reject the new, to fear the new, and to not believe the new. This is because I believe that we trust in our old understanding and beliefs so much more. The problem is that the majority of Christians do not have a clue what the Bible really says. Learning always involves growing in understanding. That implies an ever increasing and expanding knowledge process. Today’s knowledge should be building on what we learned yesterday. New truth should always fit balanced correctly with previous known truths. When it does not God is presenting us a new opportunity to come up to a higher spiritual level of thinking. Learning involves change. Being flexible and open is a key to growing with God. In my last blog I went into Old Testament verses that reveal the law of marriage and divorce. If you have not been following this series from the beginning, I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with Part 1 Covenants and Marriage.
In the last lesson we talked about Israel being divorced from God. Then we also were given several scriptures that strongly implied that Israel is now married to another spiritual being. This means that this spiritual being is now in covenant with the natural nation of Israel and God’s Law. Why was this necessary? Why would God want to get someone under the law? How would God accomplish such a task? These are all important questions to consider. But first let’s determine if this is even possible. Here are some interesting verses from the Old Testament:
Isa 28:14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
We can clearly see who the next words of God in verse 15 are addressing by looking at verse 14 and seeing that God is speaking directly to the rulers of Jerusalem. This is the earthly city Jerusalem and God is speaking directly to the men that ruled that city. These were the old covenant people that God was married to. So what does this next verse say?
Isa 28:15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
We can again clearly see covenant words of marriage being spoken in regards to the natural nation of Israel to someone. This time it says that these people are in covenant with death and hell. That declaration does not sound very positive or good, does it? Who does the New Testament say had the power over death when this verse was written? This verse in Hebrews should help you:
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;
So we can see from what God reveals in Hebrews that Satan held the power of death in the Old Testament. We can therefore conclude that if Israel was in covenant with death and hell, that would mean they were in covenant with Satan. What does Jesus have to say about these Old Testament verses in Isaiah 28?
Mat 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
We can see by this statement that Jesus implies these people in Jerusalem were married to a spiritual being that made them the children of hell. This implies a covenant relationship or marriage between a husband and a wife that has produced children of hell. Are you following these statements? Parents have children, produce families, and establish households. Basic physical biology dictates that a male and a female participate in order to produce children. If Israel is the woman who can have children, that was married to God, then who is the husband and the father in this relationship? Remember that it always takes two to tango. Jesus often times asked, if you don’t understand natural things, how will you ever understand spiritual things? So apparently these natural things are patterns into spiritual things to help us understand them. Here is another statement of Jesus to the natural nation of Israel:
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.
Did you see what Jesus said to the natural nation of Israel? He said that they were children of their father and that their father was the devil. This makes it almost impossible for us not to realize that in order for them to be Satan’s children, Satan must be in covenant and married to natural Israel. What we see is the identity of the male in the covenant relationship to the natural nation of Israel being the female. A simple husband and wife relationship that has produced children. These are of course spiritual and not natural children. Satan is not having natural sex with natural women like they did in Genesis 6. Satan learned that this was illegal and many of his angels were cast into chains awaiting judgement for doing this (Jude 1:6). We know that Satan like God is a spiritual being. We can conclude that because God can be married to Israel any spiritual being can be married to Israel, it is only logical common sense.
Why Was the Law Given to Israel?
Let’s change subjects a bit here and continue by asking what was the purpose of God giving Israel the law? Why was the law given to Israel in the first place? I have heard many say it was to show man how bad they were and to teach them that they were incapable of living up to God’s standard of excellence. I do agree with that and I do not deny that could be a part of the purpose of the law. But, I have found that when God does something He usually accomplishes more than one thing at a time. Many humans tend to focus on getting one thing done at a time. But I have learned from being a computer programmer, that the true demonstration of power occurs when someone is able to accomplish many tasks simultaneously. In computer terminology this is called multi-tasking and God does this everyday just listening to billions of people praying simultaneously. Here is a verse that will help to shed some light on this subject of why God gave Israel the law:
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 we begin to see some major clues to why God gave the law to Israel. It is a lot like our laws that our government makes for us to follow. You see there was a time when child pornography was not against the law. But did that make it right or OK to participate in? Of course not. But the government could not do anything about the people who participated in this until they passed a law. People were free to do wrong because there were no consequences for our erroneous choices and stupidity. Does that help to clear up the reason for God giving Israel the law? You see in this verse in Romans, it says we would not have known sin except that we were given the law. I sometimes wonder if people read the Bible and never think about how these words apply to other spiritual beings like Satan or Lucifer as he was named originally? Thinking and asking questions is absolutely essential when studying the Bible.
We know from Old Testament verses that sin was found in Lucifer (Eze 28:15), but according to Romans, if Lucifer didn’t know the law then he can’t face the consequences for his sin. Do you understand what I just said? God could not enforce Satan’s punishment without first getting him to know the law (be under the law). To be under the law means that you know the law and are now in covenant with that law or in covenant to those people who are in charge of keeping that the law. These are truly amazing things to consider. Here is another very important verse on our current subject of why God gave Israel the law:
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.
Wow, these are powerful words when we apply them to Lucifer (Satan). In order to stop Satan’s mouth and cause him to be found guilty he must be put under the law. Are you still following this? The implication is given unless we are under the law, we cannot be found guilty and we will not face any punishment for our sin. I know that God is a just God and is just in whatever He does, He does everything in a fair and impartial legal way. He treats everyone the same. God applies the same principles and requirements to everyone and everywhere, including Himself or He would be showing favoritism and we should know that He does not do that.
Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
God confirms the truth that declares “where there is no law there are no consequences for a sin”. Sin is still wrong, but no punishment is possible until taken to court and found guilty of violating specific law. This is divine justice and how God works. Most civil normal governments operate on this principle. Corrupt evil dictatorial controlling governments do not operate on this requirement. This verse helps us to understand why God could not convict Satan and throw him into hell the instant that sin was discovered in him. That would have been an unjust verdict since as far as I know there were no laws in heaven. Remember Lucifer was created in a state of perfection. What need is there, of any laws if everyone in your kingdom is created and acting perfectly? I believe this is what is important to know for us to understand why God created a new world with humans in Genesis 1. Then why God created a new separate nation of people called Israel born from a man named Abram in Genesis 12. Then why God gave Israel the Law in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Finally, we can better understand why it was necessary for God to come in the flesh as Jesus to die and save us from this dark Satan ruled world (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).
I have become convinced from Bible study that one major accomplishment of God giving the law to Israel was to get Lucifer under the law. There are very strong implications given to us in the Bible that this is one major accomplishment.
Is Israel in Covenant with Satan?
We were just introduced to a basic foundation for why it was necessary to get Satan to be in covenant with the natural nation of Israel. Before that we saw Israel itself admitting they were in covenant with the realm of death and hell. Then we saw several statements that Jesus made to Israel that would imply they were in covenant with Satan. We can now continue to analyze if this is what the Bible says happened. I’ll do this by going back to some scriptures that we saw in a previous lesson. In the previous lesson we emphasized the aspects of Galatians 4 and how Israel has been cast out of God’s covenant never to return. But hopefully we will bring out some new emphasis to the information for us to see what God is saying on this subject of: “Is Israel remarried to another man”?
Gal 4:22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
If you recall this verse, you can see two women and two sons being referenced. The first woman is the bond woman and the other is said to be the free woman. This is the concept of slavery versus freedom. You may recall that slavery was a condition of being under the law. This would help us to understand that Lucifer was of the free woman. This meant Lucifer was not under any law. Abraham symbolizes a type or pattern of God the Father (Jehovah). It is essential to understand that these women represents patterns of two wives in covenant with God. I’ll say this again, these two woman represent two covenants as we will see in this next verse:
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants (marriages); the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
We can see in this verse that God says these two women are allegorical and represent a far greater spiritual truth. In Biblical Allegory, God always uses a real historical natural occurrence to describe a parallel unseen spiritual reality. Most of the time if we read this story in the Old Testament we would not have a clue how it relates to any spiritual truth. However, since God gives us a specific example of how He encoded this information into the Bible in these verses in Galatians, we can begin to understand how this is possible. This is a very tricky method that God has chosen to hide these spiritual mysteries in the Bible.
Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
The bond woman is said to be Hagar and she corresponds to the law given to Moses on Mt Sinai. Therefore, Hagar represents a woman in covenant bondage to the law. God then tells us that she gives birth to a child after the flesh. Hagar is the natural nation of Israel and is directly called the “earthly city of Jerusalem”. This is in direct contrast to Sarah, the free woman who gives birth to the promised child after Hagar as we will read in verse 26 next. Who do you think the “promise child” represents? Of course it is the risen from the dead LORD Jesus Christ. However, Hagar who represents the natural Israel, gives birth to natural child Jesus of Nazareth the man after the flesh that gave His life for us to be saved. Mary called Jesus her “firstborn” son and God called Jesus His only begotten Son. But, Jesus is also called God’s firstborn from the dead. That would imply that Jesus Christ had two different births and two different mothers, one natural and one spiritual. These are very deep truths and can be very hard to see at first, simply because they are so new.
God just revealed to us that this Hagar is a type or pattern of the Earthly Jerusalem, who is now in bondage with all of her children under the law. Israel continuously tries to keep the law and earn their salvation by their works and have not realized that they are incapable of saving themselves. Remember we just read earlier that Jesus declared that Satan was the father of these natural children of Israel. Wow, that is so important. But, let’s continue with the next verse and look at Sarah:
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
We can see that there is clearly a new and different woman, called the free woman that is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem”. This literally means that she is not under the law. This Freewoman (Type of Sarah) is said to be the spiritual mother of Jesus Christ and the church. So what have we seen? There is a bond woman called the Earthly Jerusalem who is in bondage to the law. We then see that there is another woman called the Heavenly Jerusalem who is free, meaning she is not under the law. We know from studying the Bible that these two women were in a covenant and married to God (Type of Abraham) at an overlapping period of time. We know that Sarah (Heavenly Jerusalem) was married first to Abraham (God). Then Abraham and Sarah moved to Egypt where they bought a slave girl for Sarah named Hagar. Later after many years of being barren (Childless) Sarah (Heavenly Jerusalem) gives her husband Hagar (the Earth Jerusalem) as a wife to have a child for her. Abraham did this and had Ishmael that had twelve sons a type and pattern of Jesus and his 12 disciples.
Finally Sarah (the Heavenly Jerusalem) the much older woman and first wife came along and had the promised child and she was free along with her child. The Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) existed prior to the younger Earthly Jerusalem (Hagar). The younger earthly Jerusalem (Hagar) has a son that is older than the promised son of the free woman (Sarah). These are all allegorical truths to a spiritual reality that has been right before us but one that we haven’t seen until now. Now take a look at the next verse, because I want to reemphasize something very important:
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Who is the barren woman? It was a type of Sarah, the Heavenly Jerusalem, the free woman. According to Hebrews 12:22 the Heavenly Jerusalem consisted of an enumerable number of angels. We know from reading Job 38:4 that all of these angels sang for joy witnessing the creation of our world. Therefore, this Heavenly Jerusalem existed a long time before any earthly Jerusalem was formed. Are we all together on the same page?
What can we see by looking at this verse in light of the story of Abraham? We can see that this heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) was God’s wife even before the earthly Jerusalem (young Hagar) ever came into the story. We can conclude logically that this covenant between God and the Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) existed before there was a natural nation of Israel. God (Abraham) was in covenant with this free woman (Sarah), not under the law for a long time before the bond woman was given to Him (Abraham) to have a child with. But we can also see this verse is telling her (the free woman Sarah) to rejoice because more are the children of the desolate woman than the other woman.
The desolate woman is a descriptive term for a woman incapable of having children as Sarah was for many years. Sarah eventually got pregnant but, only after many years passed beyond her normal child bearing years. But with God all things are possible, the barren woman now has many more children than the bond woman. God promised this free woman that her children will be of a much greater number than those of the woman in bondage to the law. We can then see the punch line in the last part of that verse. This verse ends with the statement “she which hath an husband”. Since God is only talking about two women in these verses, we can very easily determine who He is speaking of. God is speaking about the Earthly Jerusalem (Hagar) in the terms that she now has a new husband. The clear implication is given to us that the Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) does not have a husband when these verses were written.
We already know from reading verses in Isaiah and Jeremiah that God divorced Israel and ended His covenant relationship with the Earthly Jerusalem (Hagar). We even studied scriptures in Deuteronomy 24 that said it was now illegal for God to marry this same woman again. So we know that God is not in covenant or married to natural Israel. So who is? Who is the husband of the bond woman? Who is now in bondage under the law? Who wishes that they had never crucified the Lord Jesus Christ? If we don’t know this is Satan we need to go back and reread all of this again. Who wants to destroy Israel and wipe her from the face of the planet? How could Satan get out from under the law of his wife Israel? If his wife Israel were completely dead then Satan would be free from the law. If Satan were free from the law, then punishment of his sin could not be applied to him.
CONCLUSION
I have become a firm believer that Satan did not know what would happen to him if he crucified the LORD of Glory (1 Cor 2:8). I am also convinced that this is why Satan wants to destroy the natural nation of Israel and the Church. There are a lot of people in the world being used by Satan to get this done. Many of these people call the natural nation of Israel the little Satan and the USA and Christians the Great Satan. We could go into this subject much further but this lesson is long enough.
Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to share them. I do read them and appreciate the feedback. We do pray for you and we ask you to pray for us. God bless you and keep you until the next time we get together.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Bible covenants you may go to “Part 5“.
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 3
(Ver 3.2) This is now the third part in an advanced series of Bible lessons on the subject of discovering the “True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12”. These lessons are intended for spiritually mature Christians with an open mind and a willing heart to dig deep, study and learn from the Bible. It is not for anyone with a closed mind believing they already understand the subject found in Revelation 12 fully. I love one quote that a man named Will Rogers said “We are all ignorant, just about different things”. This means that none of us knows everything, especially me. But, it is my desire and goal to learn and know more today, than I knew about God and His Word yesterday. I pray that this is your goal also. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning I would highly recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1“. We have covered a tremendous amount of new revelation that has been hidden by God in the Bible. We will not be able to repeat the previous lessons in today’s.
INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW
OK, in the last lesson, we talked about the identity of the symbolic moon found in Revelation 12 as being Satan. I believe this information was encoded (hidden) in the Bible by God’s design using some very intelligent techniques. One of these techniques for hiding information that has been used by God is the method of calling one person or spiritual entity by many different names, titles, symbols and descriptions. If you have ever studied the Bible you know that Satan is referred to as the serpent, the great dragon, the devil, Lucifer, Beelzebub, the father of lies, the ruler of darkness, the prince of darkness, the god of this world, the deceiver, the tempter, the thief, the accuser of the brethren, etc., and as we learned in the last Bible lesson the symbolic “moon”. That of course was not a complete list of Satan identifiers, but just an example of what is being taught. If you would like to see a more complete list of “Names, Titles, Symbols and Descriptions for Satan” you can click on that link and go there.
There are many reasons why I believe that God has concealed information in the Bible, but one of the main reasons is to allow Him to reveal the true meaning at the appointed time. Another great reason is to keep the information hidden from His enemy Satan. If God told Satan everything He had planned in a straightforward plain way of speaking it would allow Satan the ability to narrow his attempts to stop God’s plan on the earth. But, hiding the information provides us the blessing of finding it and Satan the opportunity to be surprised by him not knowing what to expect next from God.
For example, the Old Testament was full of the prophecies of the coming Messiah, but yet Satan didn’t understand them and neither did any of the Jews who kept the scrolls. Jesus went through the scriptures and began to reveal Himself in the O.T. to His disciples and to the apostle Paul only after He was risen from the dead (Luke 24:32, 45, Romans 16:25) . There are many reasons for this hiding of information. It also establishes a pattern of how God works with humans. It gives us notice that if He did it once, He can do it again if He so chooses. You might call this a part of God’s modus operandi.
God has given to us a huge book of divine information, which contains a countless number of prophetic scriptures and God can reveal them to us even now and I believe that is exactly what He is doing (Dan 12:4). I have quoted this verse in this series at least two times but it represents one of the foundational principles of truth that applies to us understanding the woman in Revelation 12 that is clothed with the sun, standing on the moon with a crown of 12 stars. This would be a good verse to memorize and perhaps that is God’s goal for repeating it:
Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
I would like to review this verse from Romans again to place new emphasis on what it reveals to us. What we can see in this verse is a very powerful spiritual truth being revealed to us about God’s visible and perceivable creation. This verse proves there was intelligent design contained within all of the physical components of our universe. Nothing came into being by random chance or accident.
Every created natural entity has a design and a purpose to reveal something that is not yet understood by most humans. This verse claims that God created all these natural things in our visible world to reveal greater spiritual things that we need to understand to help us know about Him. By knowing these, God informs us that we will be able to understand even parts of His awesome omnipotent power and His divinely gracious Godhead. That is why it is important to note how created things like the sun, the moon and the stars fit by His design into the greater spiritual picture. By understanding these naturally created things God is revealing some very powerful spiritual truths to us. I just can’t say that enough.
In Revelation 12:1 we have been studying a descriptive picture or a symbolic woman with a specific purpose and design. For emphasis I believe that I should review these featured symbolic elements and what we have learned so far. This woman is said to have the following distinctive characteristics and features:
- A Woman (an unnamed female)
- Her head covered by a crown of 12 stars (emblem of victory in a contest)
- Her body clothed with the Sun (the Greater Light, Jesus Christ)
- Her feet standing on the moon (the lesser light, Satan)
- The location of the woman is said to be heaven
- Finally from Rev 4:1 we learned Rev 12 is a prophetical future view into events being described.
These are basic statements of revealed facts. They are all so very significant. We have discovered though study that the head of the woman is crowned with a symbol of victory from winning a contest like an Olympic event. We have discovered by study that the body (the church) is clothed with Jesus Christ who is the revealed symbolic Sun. We have discovered by study that the woman’s feet are standing on the ruler of the darkness, the moon, who is revealed to be Satan. We have discovered by study that this event occurs in the future during the coming soon tribulation period of 7 years of time. We have read numerous scriptures to back these explicit and implicit asserted truths that we cannot repeat here. Knowing this revelation and understanding it will now help us to clearly identify the woman. However, we will now go over some new verses that are recorded by God to confirm this information:
Psa 136:7 To him that made great lights: for his mercy endureth for ever:
Psa 136:8 The sun to rule by day: for his mercy endureth for ever:
Psa 136:9 The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth for ever.
We can see that the Genesis 1 day 4 account of day 4 of creation is being repeated as a second witness of confirming truth here in the book of Psalms. This information verifies what we have already learned and provides greater emphasis to the importance of the information. The Sun rules the kingdom of the “day” and we are told that the moon and the stars rules the kingdom of the “night”. I like to provide at least two or three witnesses to every Bible truth so that you will know that I am not taking things out of context or just making stuff up as I go.
UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT MEANS
FOR SOMEONE TO BE UNDER HER FEET
Today, we need to explore this subject using a much deeper application to its position to the woman to help confirm the identity of the symbolic moon in Revelation 12 we know is called the ruler of darkness. We will do this from a different perspective to determine if we can establish precedence from the scripture for Satan to be declared under the feet of any woman? We will do this specifically by studying these women suspect candidates that could represent the woman in Revelation 12:
- The Church (the body and bride of Christ)
- Israel (the Old Covenant Wife of Jehovah)
- Mary (the virgin natural mother of Jesus).
We all know that the woman in Revelation 12 is said to have the moon under her feet. It must have been important to God to specifically mention these two symbols in this relationship. Technically we should know that by standing on the moon this is synonymous to the moon being under her feet? Let’s start by asking God what does it mean in your Word to have something or someone under your feet? Is there a figurative meaning to this expression that is important for our correct interpretation. I believe the answer is YES! I believe that any good Bible student has seen this in the Bible before and can probably teach this section of the lesson..
From my Bible research and study I believe that anything or anyone that is stated to be under someone’s feet in the Bible is a symbolic reference to them being lowered in position of order, power, rank or authority. Someone being under foot is a figurative sign or symbol of their defeat by the person that is standing in triumphant victory over the one underfoot. The person underfoot is certainly the implied enemy of the one standing upon them being conquered. For example, God told Joshua in the Old Testament, everywhere the sole of your foot shall tread, I have given to you (Joshua 1:3). To “tread on” literally means to walk over something or someone with your feet to be given their possessions.
We learn from this established Joshua principle that whatever God has already given to humans, they are required to fight and to possess including overcoming the enemies holding that land. This is an established spiritual law of faith. These were God’s ways of demonstrating to Joshua that he was going to be victorious over his enemies. It is clear to me that the natural nation of Israel had many natural enemies. This Old Covenant between Israel and Jehovah was a physical battle between natural physical forces being backed by opposing spiritual powers. It is also clear from reading just Joshua that natural Israel won their victories over most of their enemies by being led and obeying the voice of Jehovah. I believe this was a type and pattern for the church in the coming spiritual warfare in the New Covenant.
The spiritual enemy to the church is of course, Satan and I won’t go into every scripture that we could use to verify this. I believe that what God spoke to Joshua was a prophetic utterance that further applies to a pattern for us in the spiritual church to follow. What I will do now is give you some Biblical backing for “treading” on an enemy.
Psa 44:5 Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
Here we see a powerful prophetic principle given to us. This is a statement that can clearly be taken either naturally or spiritually. Symbolically speaking, God is referring to the enemies of the church being under our feet. It definitely also applies to the natural nation of Israel. I cannot see any application of this verse to Mary. If we can find this principle in the Bible, it will make the task of identifying the woman in Revelation 12 easier to confirm. Here is another interesting Old Testament scripture that must be related to Revelation 12:
Psa 91:13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
Did you notice the references to an “adder” and a “dragon”? Do you see the symbolic parallels related to Revelation chapter 12? I don’t think there are very many dragons in the Bible directly named and said to be under someone’s feet. I believe that this verse is directly related scripture that further points us to the identity of the “moon” under her feet, as being the defeated Satan, also defined as the dragon and the old serpent in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2. As I ran references in the Bible looking for the principle of treading down I ran into verses like this one:
Job 40:12 Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.
Maybe you recall how Satan was lifted up in pride in the Old Testament (Eze 28:7, Isa 14) and some of the statements that he is said to have made. God makes a prophetic declaration in these verses in Isaiah 14:11. God informs Satan that “His pomp will be brought down to the grave… and worms will be under and over him. That sounds like someone in a natural grave that humans walk over all the time. Notice the similarities found here in Job when God says that everyone that is proud will be brought low. Then it also speaks of the wicked being tread down (walked upon). I think these references apply to Satan.
It is interesting to note what God told Adam in Genesis 1. God gave Adam some specific instructions and here is one that is very relevant to our discussion:
Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
We understand from this verse that God created the man to look like Him. God then turned His control of the earth over to His creation. God specifically says man has been given “dominion” over all the earth, and everything that moves on the earth. That is a very powerful bit of information for us to understand. It is also important that we know the Hebrew word translated as “dominion” has the following definition in the Strong’s:
H7287
A primitive root; to tread down, that is, subjugate; specifically to crumble off: – (come to, make to) have dominion, prevail against, reign, (bear, make to) rule, (-r, over), take.
Uh, oh! This Hebrew word has far reaching implications attached to it. It declares that man was intended to rule the earth. But, did you notice the word literally means “to tread down”. That is an active command for Adam to walk with his feet on every enemy to demonstrate their defeat. This Hebrew word clearly means to “prevail against” an enemy.
We must realize that God intentionally and prophetically declares the end from the beginning in this statement (Isa 46:10). God is saying in Isaiah that the end will be like I intended it to be from the beginning. I believe that is why we are learning about this woman in Revelation standing on the defeated moon object.
Adam was given charge over the earth and the instructions to defeat every enemy that came against him. God knew there was coning an enemy to defeat. But, instead Adam let Satan into our world and Satan became the god of our world system (2 Cor 4:4).
If we look at verse 28 in Genesis 1 God repeats His instructions to the man, but this time the man is told to “subdue”. This Hebrew word again means to “tread down”. In other words walk on. The word literally means to conquer and to bring into subjection every enemy. By placing someone underfoot they have been clearly defeated. These are all historical and prophetic words of a warfare that should have occurred 6000 years ago but is waiting to be fulfilled.
I believe that the church will be used by God to demonstrate Satan’s defeat. You see the man was created on the last part of the 6th day of creation. If you understand how the days of creation are prophetic this would indicate that man will again become spiritually mature at the end of the 6th day or near the end of the 6000 year time period that God has given humans to have dominion. This would also mean that what God intended for the man to do this on Day 1 but since the first Adam failed, God introduced the second Adam and I believe will use His bride to soon make this happen. This must occur very soon before the end of the 6000 years (Day 6).
I believe we are this phase of God’s plan now with it occurring at the end of the Church age. God speaks of this by declaring us to be the victorious one (1 Cor 15:57). Victory was the way that God intended it to be in the beginning and this is the way that it will be at the end of human history. I believe that the church will go out victorious with Satan under our feet. But, let us look for and confirm all of this in the Bible.
Let us continue now by looking at what Jesus says to the church right before He ascends into heaven. At this point and time Jesus was already crucified, and after 3 days arose to live forever more. Here in Luke we see some instructions being given to someone. We must ask this question “were these instructions given to us, the church or just the natural Jew?” In the book of Luke Jesus makes this amazing statement:
Luk 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
In this verse, I believe that God is talking to the future saved church who began with all Jewish men about their spiritual enemy. I know the statement is made to the group of Jewish men that were sent out in pairs to cast out devils and healed the sick. But if you read the context of this statement you will find clues that indicate we in the church are also included in this promise. For example, in verse 20 Jesus said “don’t rejoice because spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” Wow that has to be saved Christians. We know this from studying the Book of Revelation and reading the scriptures about the book of life in heaven (Rev 3:5, Rev 17:8, Rev 20:17). This book of life contains all of the living and those whose names are not found written are forever declared dead and this is the second death. Wow!
Jesus is referring to a spiritual enemy and not a fleshly, carnal or natural enemy. We know this very clearly because Jesus said “spirits are subject to them”.. In this verse, Jesus clearly delegates His authority from His victory on the cross to the church. But, did you also notice the referenced connection to an enemy symbolically called a “serpent”?
Please understand that this serpent is defined to be Satan in our study chapter of Revelation 12. Three times in Revelation 12 Satan is called by the name of the serpent. This Greek word G3789 is translated as “serpent” in 14 New Testament verses including Luke and Revelation. That makes them related by God’s choice. Where was “the serpent” suppose to be according to Jesus our Lord and Savior? We are informed that this symbolic evil being is intended to be under the feet of the church, yes? Tread on means to put under your feet and walk on just as God instructed Joshua and commanded Adam to do.
This is a descriptive symbolic representation of where Satan (the serpent Rev 12:9) is to be in relation to where the church is suppose to be. It is not coincidental or by accident that the identity of the serpent is clearly given to us in Revelation 12:9. But, where does this statement and concept first originate in the Bible? The “serpent” is found in the Bible for the very first direct reference in Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 before Adam and Eve sinned. Satan deceives the woman. Uh oh, here we go with a woman. Could this be another divine connection of prophecy being made? After Adam and Eve sinned God comes on the scene of the garden and speaks the following words directly to the serpent, who we know from Revelation 12:9 is Satan:
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
I am going to challenged here, because the translators made a huge mistake. But I’ll attempt to explain it and hopefully you will understand it. God is speaking to Satan, the ancient serpent. Therefore, we know who at least one of the primary subjects or nouns in the verse represents. God says to Satan “I will put enmity between thee…” and let me stop right there. What is enmity? It means hatred, it is an emotional status between two enemies! It seems to indicate an implied confrontation or even an assumed warfare.
How is this going so far? Now God reveals the other primary subject or noun in the verse and He calls this one “the woman”. Let’s stop there again and figure out which woman. Since there was only one physical woman on the planet, was it Eve or was this woman a prophetic statement of a different spiritual woman to come? Since at no time in scriptures do we ever see that the physical Eve crushed the head of Satan, I feel we can rule out this natural woman Eve as being the woman that God is referring to.
Many have tried to claim that this woman is Israel who gives birth to Jesus and that is certainly one possibility for interpretation. But we really need scriptural evidence to confirm this interpretation. Since we are studying a woman in Revelation 12 and there are verses that we have not learned yet, I have eliminated this prophesied woman to be Israel. Therefore, I am convinced that this Genesis 3 woman is a prophetic statement concerning the church and I will tell you why soon.
Then God seems to change the subject focus off of the woman and Satan in Genesis 3, and He says “between your (Satan) seed and her (a woman’s) seed”. Here we have the first reference in the Bible to “the seed of the woman“. This of course is an interesting and complex concept. But, what we need to determine is, according to the Bible, what is a “seed”? If you would like to read the series on this subject in depth you can go to “Understanding Seeds“.
There are many different definition of seed given to us in the Bible, from natural seeds found in fruits and vegetables that you plant into the ground, all the way to the sperm in a male. Then, children are also called seeds in the Bible. These are all examples, of natural seeds. But, there are also spiritual seeds in the Bible and if this is a prophetic reference to a spiritual woman, I would logically claim that “her seed” is a spiritual reference also.
So what are spiritual seeds? Jesus tells us in the Gospels that the sower, sows the word of God (Mk 4:14). We can learn from this statement that the seeds that the sower was sowing were God’s Words. These are spiritual seeds that are planted into the hearts of men (Mat 13:19). These seeds are either fruitful or they die or get eaten by birds (symbolic devils) or choked out by the enemy’s seeds (weeds which are symbolic words from Satan) because the hearer did not understand them.
There are multiple parables in the gospels about seeds, gardens and harvests that all apply to the spiritual realities that I am referring to and I will not attempt to include these in order to keep this lesson as short as possible. If nothing else you should have learned that there are many possibilities for what the seed of the woman could be and we could apply the principle of Satan’s seed being his words that are attempting to overrule God’s Word to eliminate spiritual fruit and salvation from humans. That is at least one valid and good interpretation for what we are studying in Revelation 12 and Genesis 3. But, maybe you are like me and have heard it taught for years that the “seed of the woman” is Jesus Christ and He is the one to bruise the head of the serpent on the cross. That is a common misinterpretation of God’s word and I will attempt to explain why I say this.
So here is where I may lose some readers, the next statement in Genesis 3:15 is the part of the prophecy that I believe was mistranslated by two little words. This is what the King James Bible says “it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. The first word is the word “it” and this is a Hebrew word that is often times translated as “she” or “her”. In fact if you look back at Genesis 3:12, Adam’s response to God’s question is for him to call his wife by this word and it is translated as “she”. In this verse it is translated “the woman that you gave me, she (H1931) did give me of the tree and I did eat…” For some reason the translation was changed to the word “it” instead of the word “her” for verse 15.
Now the last part of verse 15 says “and you shall bruise his heel”. That is very interesting because a male child is never referenced in this verse anywhere. However I believe that in verse 15 the translators thought (assumed) God was talking about a prophetic statement of Jesus Christ so they changed the verse to reflect the male gender of Jesus to be the one whose heel was to be bruised. This reflected in the term “his heel”. From what I could see by studying, there was no Hebrew word for “his” included in the verse so it was also added for the assumed clarity by the translators. However, if we change the verse to what I consider to be a more correct translation it would read like this:
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee (Satan) and the woman (Church), and between thy seed (words) and her seed (words); she (H1931) shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel.
Right now this is just a minor technicality, but I believe based upon more scriptures that I will show you it will become very significant. Remember this, Jesus told His church to walk on serpents. Jesus knowing Genesis 3 very well selected the symbolic name for Satan (serpent) to give them the “authority” to tread on him. Therefore, Jesus knows and understand who Satan represents. Right there ought to tell us plainly that Jesus did not already do it! Jesus would have never delegated something that He had already accomplished and completed.
Notice in Luke 10:19 how God has give to us all of the same nouns and verbs directly and indirectly that were found in Genesis 3:15. I believe there is an implied “enmity” between two opposing parties. One is the person (implied woman called the church) that is to conquer her enemy Satan and his demons. Therefore we have the serpent, the church’s feet, and Jesus’ instruction (words) given to her (the church) to walk with her feet (including her heels) on Satan. I know some of these are indirect references yet they are there if you can see them. Let me give you another valuable scripture found in the New Testament that will shed significant additional light on the subject. In the book Romans, God makes this statement that is truly another outstanding prophecy:
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.
Again we have the primary subjects and nouns including verbs found in Genesis 3:15 and Luke 10:19, but using slightly different terminology and perspectives. We see God speaking to the Church, the bride of Christ a spiritual woman saying to her that He (God) will bruise Satan (the serpent) under her (our) feet (heel) very soon. You see there is a major problem if Jesus has already put Satan under His feet. Why would God still need to crush Satan’s head again using the church’s feet later in the future tense?
God gave Paul the book of Roman’s many years after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and at the time of this writing, according to the inspired Word of God the bruising of the serpent’s head had not yet occurred. Did you also notice the very parallel specific term “bruise” in Romans 15:20? Isn’t that exactly what God said would happen to the serpent in Genesis 3:15? Again, we can see a spiritual woman, her feet and Satan the serpent being bruised. All of this is mentioned in relation to a pending future action that was to soon occur. We can see in God’s timetable that the time of this crushing of the serpent’s head has to occur very soon. From prophetic words that we studied in Genesis 1, we can see that the church age only lasts two days, or 2000 years. So if it is going to happen it has to happen very, very soon. Here is one more verse that I will end this lesson with. In this verse we again see the pending status of God’s enemies:
Heb 1:13 But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?
Here we have another verse that states Satan, the enemy of God is not yet completely under the feet of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is now seated at the right of the Father and He waits for His enemy to be made His footstool. A footstool is a place you rest your feet, yes? If the church is the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), where are Jesus’ feet right now? I believe that we are the feet of Jesus walking on the earth and Jesus is now seated in heaven waiting for the God of Peace to bruise Satan under our feet.
How is the church supposed to do this? Read Ephesians 6:13-18 for God’s clue to how this bruising will soon occur. We will find in these verses God’s command to the church to be clothed with the whole armor of God. What was included in this armor? There are two main parts of the armor that I believe are the most important parts for our current study.
The first armor necessary for victory over Satan is found in Ephesians 6:15 where the church’s feet should be shod with preparation of the gospel of peace. Wow, isn’t that interesting? Wasn’t it the God of Peace that was going to bruise Satan under our feet shortly? Then notice and learn the Greek word G5265 translated as “shod”. This word literally means to bind on sandals under your feet. Wow again. Can we put on and tie God’s sandals on our feet so that we can walk on Satan? It appears to me that we can.
The next armor piece that I want focus upon and include here is the Sword of the Spirit found in verse 17. We are told that this is the Word of God. Wow again. Isn’t that the Seed of God? Doesn’t that sound familiar between our two enemies found in Genesis 3:15? God said I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between her seed and your seed. Now in Revelation 12 we have a woman clothed with the Sun (the armor of light) with the moon (Satan) under her feet. Remember what God said in Romans 13:12? God said to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Wow, wow, wow!
CONCLUSION
I believe it is time to demonstrate the defeat of Satan under the feet of the spiritual woman. So what I have attempted to do today is to demonstrate scriptural precedence that establishes a woman that has Satan under her feet. By establishing this in the Bible it helps us to better understand the woman in Revelation 12. The woman is clothed with Jesus Christ and has Satan defeated under her feet. Who else can it be? I have not found any witnesses to these truths being Mary or the natural nation of Israel. So far it appears to only fit the church accurately.
Thanks for taking the time to study the Word of God. If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons you can continue with “Part 4“.
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 2
(Ver 2.9) This is Part 2 in a series of advanced Bible lessons on the essential subject of knowing and understanding “The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12”. In the last lesson on this subject, we were introduced to several potentially new Biblical ideas and concepts. One was the revelation of God’s usage of “dependent truths” in the Bible This is where understanding one truth is completely dependent upon understanding one or more associated truths. This could also be viewed as a type of parent truth related to their child truths. Without first understanding the identity of the parent truth the children truth is not easily found or understood. We learned this was a type of inherited or passed down association of attributes from one generation to the next. I believe in the concept of finding truth as learning from a paradigm of increasing layers of building blocks of truth. The foundational layer of truth are the basic fundamental blocks that must be acquired and laid down, in order to build (grow) higher layers of more complex truths. We will never understand the top layers of complex (meat) truths without first building up the essential elementary (milk) layers first. That is what is meant by the label “Dependent Truth Relationships”. The definition of the word “dependent” simply means something that is “determined”, “influenced” or controlled by something else. Hopefully that brings us clarity to why there are so many different theories to who the woman in Revelation 12 represents.
A common error of many interpretations of the identity of the “Woman” in Revelation 12 is based upon a lack of first identifying the basic fundamental truths that are necessary for us to understand the identity of the higher level dependent truths. These basics greatly change and influence our way of thinking to see things we had never seen before. By not first understanding the very basic symbolic truths of what she is wearing, why she is wearing this, what she is standing upon, why she is standing upon it, what she is crowned with and what she is doing we will not understand correctly her identified name. However, by understanding the correct meanings of these symbols, we can easily eliminate who she cannot represent which is helpful to change our focus upon who she actually must be.
Therefore we used this concept to begin to learn listing the main featured symbols associated with the woman. We then began our search for these symbols using the crown of 12 stars from three perspectives. These were the the number 12, the stars and the crown. We then moved on to the most important symbol to identify the symbolic “Sun” as being the Lord Jesus Christ. We learned the physical sun as being the closest star to our planet earth as well as the primary natural source of warmth, light and life. We then used these natural qualities relate to spiritual Jesus. There are an overwhelming number of confirming verses in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that called and described Jesus to be our spiritual Sun. Sometimes He was called “the Sun of Righteousness”, the “Day Star”, “the Bright Morning Star”, the “Light” of the world and other similar descriptions, but all of these were synonymous terms for the sun.
The first lesson ended with verses confirming how we (the Church) are instructed by God to be clothed with “Christ Jesus”. There are other verses that we did not go over that further this claim. For example, without this spiritual clothing of Jesus we are spiritually uncovered and naked and could be viewed in an open state of shame (sin). One great verse like this is found in 2 Corinthians 5:3. I recommend that you go and study this part of the discussion for yourself. What is essential to know beyond the identity of the Sun, is to next understand why the woman must be clothed with this symbol. God could have selected and described the Sun’s relationship to the woman to be many things. But, He chose to select Him to be clothing.
Let us reverse two of the main symbols. How would the viewpoint meaning change if the woman was standing on the sun and clothed with the moon? As we gather knowledge on this subject we will begin to see how that change would cause the woman to be a completely different person. In fact I believe Satan would love this woman and not be in a war with her if she was standing upon the Sun. Remember what Lucifer said in Isaiah 14:13? He said “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”. This statement contains many of the same elements found in Revelation 12:1. For example, the mention of a throne implies a crown. The mention of stars is a direct comparison and we know our sun is just the closest star. The location in heaven is the exact same place where this woman in Revelation 12 appears in verse 1. Finally the term “above” is the identical concept of “standing on”. We know the woman in Revelation 12 is “above” the moon. Therefore, it was Lucifer’s desire to be standing on all of God’s stars with their position being under him. Wow, this is not how it is going to turn out as we will soon discover in Revelation 12.
If you have read through the first lesson you already know where we are going next in the dependent symbolic truth relationships. I realize that there are new readers constantly to this website. Therefore if you have not read the first lesson in this series, I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1“. We will not be able to repeat that entire lesson again today. So you need to understand foundational basic things from the beginning to better understand the new things that will be discussed today.
GOD’S SYMBOLIC MOON IDENTITY
The next focus will be to ask God to reveal to us who the identity of the symbolic moon in Revelation 12:1 represents. We will also ask Him what it means to have this object under her feet. We do this by allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us into the Bible to define and interpret itself on this subject. This approach eliminates extra-Biblical bias, assumptions and prejudicial interpretations. But before we dig deep into the Bible to explore the moon’s identity, let’s begin to understand this subject with a general overview of our naturally created moon. God teaches us in Romans verse 20 that the invisible qualities of God can be known by observing things that were created, even these declare His eternal power and Godhead. Therefore by understanding naturally created realities we should be able to learn of hidden spiritual characteristics and truths. This is true of the sun, the moon and the stars. For example, notice the photograph in this paragraph of the moon. This photograph shows us the ever changing phases of the moon. The fact that the moon can be in a full visible phase and a completely invisible phase with varying stages in between is profound. According to Malachi 3:6 God says “that He is the LORD and He does not ever change”. Therefore the moon cannot represent a symbol of God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit. The moon also has a dark side that is never seen from earth regardless of the phase revealed to our view. These are just some of the basic natural facts concerning the moon.
Another basic fact is that the moon has NO light or life of its own production. This is also very revealing to us. This knowledge further confirms that the moon cannot represent God who is LIGHT (1 Jn 1:5) and LIFE (Jn 14:6). We have just learn from features given to us by natural observation that it is impossible for the “moon” to be a symbol of God. Therefore, we have eliminated one main Bible possibility.
I have heard more than one preacher claim that the moon represents the church in Bible symbolism. They attempt to say a Christian in of themselves has no “light or life” apart from Jesus who represents the Sun. Therefore, as long as a Christian stays in the light of Jesus they will be the Light within the Dark unsaved world. While that logic could be viewed as partially correct, I do not believe we understand what it means for a woman to be standing on the “church” means. If the moon is a symbol of the church, we are in serious trouble in Revelation 12. We will find out more about it means to be “under foot” later to clear up and learn that the moon cannot be the representation of the church.
The fact that the moon primarily revolves around the earth monthly can also be a clue. If the earth is a symbol of humans, God could never revolve around us. The earth is a symbolic type of the human condition as we learned about in lesson 1. If the earth represents humans we can turn towards God and allow Him to get brighter or by the same choice turn away from God to live apart from Him, on a daily basis. When we turn away from God we are departing from the light and moving back into a realm of darkness where God is not seen. When a Christians realizes their drifting away from God they can choose to repent and turn away from darkness and then move back towards the Light (Jesus). Christians are the ones that must focus on Him (Jesus, our Sun, Light & Life). These are just further confirmations to who the moon cannot represent.
The fact that the moon is normally only viewable at night is also an important fact of truth. This is just another applicable fact that informs us the moon cannot represent God because God is Light and in Him is no darkness. Also we learn from reading 1 John 2:8 that as long as a Christian remains in Him and Him in us we are in the True Light and the darkness has past. Wow, that is an amazing conditional promise, but it is a daily choice to remain in Him and permit Him to be Lord in Us. By us discovering who the moon is not this can greatly help us determine who the moon really represents.
SUN, MOON & STARS – LAW OF FIRST MENTION
Where in the Bible are the sun, the moon and the stars first mentioned? This will help establish by God’s design what is needed to understand the subject of the sun, the moon and the stars found in Revelation 12:1. God consistently reveals fundamental truths and definitions the first time a subject is mentioned in the Bible. Many Bible teachers searched their Bibles and found the sun, moon and stars mentioned in Genesis 37:9.
This verse teaches us about a divinely inspired dream that was given to Joseph. We were introduced to this dream in lesson 1. In this dream many teachers believe that this verse in Genesis 37 proves and confirms that the woman in Revelation 12 must represent the natural nation of Israel using the 12 sons of Jacob. This dream contains a symbolic sun, a symbolic moon and 11 symbolic stars that bow down to Joseph (the 12th Star of the family). However, this interpretation is in error and does not fit the remaining patterns of descriptions for what the woman in Revelation 12 is doing with these objects on and around her body. We have already seen several problems with this application. There are only 11 stars bowing with the moon and the sun. Jacob interpreted the dream and informed us that the sun represented him, the moon Joseph’s mother and the stars were Joseph’s brothers. As we saw before, wearing Jacob, standing on Rachel and a missing star are three of the most profound conflicts.
However, this is one of the main reasons why Bible teachers believe the woman in Revelation 12 represents the natural nation of “Israel”. Many people believe this way. But before you pick up stones to cast at me for being a false teacher, realize that this dream to Joseph is NOT the first mention of the sun, moon and stars in one verse in the Bible and that disqualifies it for usage from the law of first mention interpretation rule. Let’s explore the actual first mention of the sun, moon and stars and learn what God teaches us from it.
The very first mention from God of these created objects is found In the book of Genesis chapter 1 verses 13 through 18. This is the account that describes the 4th day of creation. We can learn some very important applicable truths to Revelation 12:1 by applying the interpretation law of first mention using Genesis 1 and not the assumed Genesis 37 reference. When we do this we will discover that God gives us very specific information and clues to the spiritual identities of the symbolic sun, moon and stars. Of course the first challenge is to realize that these heavenly objects are not called by the obvious names “sun” or “moon” like they are in Revelation chapter 12. This fact has been the reason why so many Bible teachers, students and commentators have not seen these relationships before now.
In Genesis 1 the sun and the moon are hidden, by God by labeling them with alternative names of “the greater light” and “the lesser light”. This was an intentionally designed method of God to conceal them and to reveal them to when He desired us to connect them to Revelation 12. In Genesis 1:16 God declares the existence of two great lights. The first He called the “Greater Light” and the second He called the “lesser light”.
We can all understand that the “greater light” represents another name for the sun and the lesser light represents another name for the moon because they are used with the direct named “stars” that are also heavenly created bodies. But, through God’s usage of “greater” and “lesser” lights we get a direct comparison to hidden spiritual truths of the greater light is described as being much more significant and powerful than the other. We can easily understand how this is found in the natural descriptions of the sun versus the moon. The natural sun is a huge ball of consuming fire and the moon is a smaller object than the earth and is a pile of dead rocks. Wow, that description should turn several lights on inside of our minds.
I believe this Greater and lesser light descriptions correspond to a verse of information given to us by God in 1 John 4:4. This verse is where God says to the church “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”. This is another major corresponding parallel comparison of one spiritual person being on the inside of us that is called “greater” than another “lesser” spiritual being that is in the world. That should begin to turn more lights on in our minds to see things that we may have never read in the Bible before from this perspective.
I am a firm believer that the Greater Light represents Jesus Christ as we learned in the first lesson. As 1 John 4:4 teaches us this One that is called Greater is in a Christian. However, there is someone else implied as the lesser light that we are told is in all the people in the world. Wow, isn’t that amazing that this lesser light could be on the inside of someone? This is definitely a New Covenant spiritual reality that must be understood.
Since we already have learned that the “Greater Light” = the “Sun” and these symbols represent “Jesus” who was, and is, and is to come (Rev 1:8). Ask yourself “who is greater than Jesus”? The obvious answer is no one except God the Father. Therefore, we have not narrowed the scope of the possible identity of the moon the lesser light, in the least. Unless we know who God is speaking of in 1 John 4:4. We learn this from reading the contextual verses. There are two opposing spirits being described in verses 1 through 3. One is the Spirit of Christ and the other is the spirit of “antichrist”. These are opposites like the spirit of Christ whois Good and God and the spirit of antichrist is evil and the devil. What we should begin to see is that the moon (lesser light) appears to represent Satan based upon 1 John 4:4. But, let’s continue to study the rest of this subject in Genesis 1 to confirm these truths.
Remember that Genesis chapters 1 through 3 are vastly connected to the book of Revelation. I like to call them the Book Ends of the entire Bible. What God initiates in Genesis, He completes in Revelation. Let us look at a Genesis 1 quick overview. On Day 1 of creation God creates light to shine on the earth and establishes two separations or divisions of natural and spiritual opposition. One He called “day” and the other He called “night”. These are opposites just as we learned from 1 John 4. We could call this “Day” and anti-day.
We can understand from this statement in Genesis 1:3-5 that the sun and moon must have already existed on Day 1 for any of these days and nights on earth to exist. Think about this statement from God logically, the earth rotates completely every 24 hours to fulfill a one day cycle, that cycle consists of both daylight and darkness. It takes approximately 365 of these revolutions to complete one complete cycle of the earth around the sun. This completed cycle causes the fulfillment of one year. Without the sun’s presence providing light and gravitational pull upon the earth it could not participate in a single day cycle. Again it is the earth’s consistent rotation around the sun that causes each night and day to occur.
Therefore, the sun, moon and stars must have been created in Genesis 1:1 when God’s Word said “In the beginning the A-Z God created the heavens and the earth”. The beginning represents the realm of created matter, space, and time. It is very interesting to see what I just quoted from Genesis, that you may have missed. Did you notice that I said the “A-Z” God created? That is what the original Hebrew literally says using the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. When we go and read Revelation 1:8 we will find Jesus saying I am the Alpha and the Omega (A-Z) again. God used the first and last Hebrew letters in Genesis and the first and last Greek letters in Revelation about the same person that we call Creator. Again we discover more parallels within the bookends.
I also read in Genesis 1:5 “that there was evening and morning the first day”. The fact that God specifically describes a dusk evening event occurrence and a dawn morning event occurrence proves the sun’s existence. Without a physical sun with a turning earth evenings do not occur nor do sunrises in the morning . There are other Bible lessons that are found on this website to learn more reasons from the Bible for why we should believe this way.
Now continue by reading Day 4 of creation and Genesis 1:16. We can see that God introduces a new concept of “ruling” with two “rulers”. In this verse God says that the created sun (the greater light) will rule the Day division and the created moon (the lesser light) will rule the night division that were previously established on Day 1 of creation. It is very interesting to note that these two divisions can be further divided into 12 unique measurements of time commonly called hours. I believe that it is not by accident or coincidence that God has done this. I believe that this is a purposeful, intentional act of God that reveals some new hidden spiritual things to us.
In the last lesson on this subject I introduced you to a potential new controversial Bible topic division with there being the natural nation of Israel and the spiritual nation Israel (James 1:1, 1 Peter 2:9). Each of these two nations also consist of twelve distinct divisions like day and night. These 12 divisions or sub-divisions are called tribes (Gen 49:28, James 1:1). There were 12 tribes which originated from the man Jacob renamed Israel and there were 12 apostles chosen by the man Jesus a type of Jacob. These are all prophetical patterns of night (darkness) and day (light). Two nations one natural, and one spiritual with both having 12 divisions. Adding them together we get 24, the total hours in one day which consists of the dark and light periods of a day. Do you see how this might apply to the church? Do you remember what Jesus said to the Jewish leaders of natural Israel? He said “Search your scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life but these are they that testify of me”. Wow, Jesus was informing them He was on every page of their scriptures but they could not see Him because they were in darkness. But, we in the church if we have the Light of Jesus on the inside of us can find Him everywhere if we are looking in the same verses. This is probably something new to think about and where we go from here may be even a greater challenge for many to receive.
Day and night are natural symbolic references that present spiritual realities revealed to us in the New Testament. Both of these conditions represent the spiritual state of the hearts of men and women on the earth. Day and Night are two distinct and unique kingdom divisions, one of light and one of darkness. The church is said to be in the day and the light and the rest of the world is said to be in darkness. If you use your Bible search program you will find many references to these facts in both the Old and New Testaments. Search for key words like night, day, light and darkness to start with. I also have an entire Bible series on this specific subject called “Understanding Night and Day“. I would highly recommend that you read and study this subject series to better understand the spiritual truths of the existence of two separate spiritual kingdom realities. When you do this you will find that Jesus came into the dark world as a light to be the spiritual ruler of the spiritual day (Kingdom of Light) and Satan became the ruler of the night (kingdom of darkness) after Adam sinned.
There are two spiritual kingdoms and by default all humans are born in the darkness until the Light of God shines in their hearts. Humans can’t be in both kingdoms at the same time. By default we are all born into Satan’s kingdom of darkness until we receive Jesus to be our Lord and then we are translated and reborn spiritually into the Kingdom of Light (Col 1:13). I will try to give you some of the key verses for those that want an overview or review of the subject:
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.
God informs the church that we are now of the Day and of the Light. The church is actually called children of the Light. We learned and should now know from other verses in the Bible that God is Light and in Him is no darkness (1 Jn 1:5). Therefore, the saved members of the church are called the spiritual children of God. Here in 1 Thes. 5:5 is a very clear reference that anyone that is not spiritually reborn into the church (not a child of God) is in the night and in the darkness. We also can see that since God has no darkness in Him, these unsaved people in the darkness are completely separated from God. Wow, by default we are not in God and God is not in us. That should concern us if we have never invited Jesus into our heart.
So again we see two parallel truths, one natural truth and one spiritual. These truths represent divisions and separations. Again we should call these divisions “two kingdoms”, one called day and one called night. We also should learn that kingdoms normally have sovereign rulers. Who are the rulers of day and night? We know from studying the Bible that Night and Day are symbolic representations of the conditions of the hearts of men and women on the earth. Therefore, who the ruler of the kingdom within our hearts is either the ruler of Light or the ruler of darkness depending upon who we allow in our heart. But by default it is Satan when no choice has been made. Let’s go through the Genesis 1 day 4 account of creation and determine how this information fits into God’s spiritual pattern found within created natural truths of day and night:
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.
Did you notice God said that there were lights, plural that were going to divide the day from the night? What did Day and Night represent? Day and night are symbolic states of the spiritual condition (kingdom) of the hearts of humans. These lights were created to provide humans light and life upon the earth. Earth (soil) represents symbolically the spiritual hearts of men and women. Earth is where the sun shines to cause plants, trees and fruit to grow. The church is instructed to produce fruit (John 15). Where does spiritual fruit grow in man and what causes it?
Here is a quick overview of the process taught by Jesus in the Parable of the sower. Jesus taught us that spiritual fruit comes from spiritual trees and spiritual plants that grow in the spiritual ground (the hearts of mankind) by receiving spiritual Seed which is defined to be the Word of God (Mk 4, Lk 8). I could spend a lot of time familiarizing us with these basic Bible concepts, but hopefully we understand them. If not, please go read the Bible series dedicated to the subject of Understanding the Parable of the Sower. Let us continue in Genesis and see what else God says about these two different dominate lights:
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.
We can clearly see that God declares two lights to be the rulers of these two divisions called day and night. These represent exact times of personal choice. Either day or night, there is no third option or realm of existence. If you are saved you are in the Day and if you reject Jesus not believing in Him you are automatically walking in the blindness of darkness.
The Hebrew word translated as “rule” is H4475 is defined to be someone who is in a state of powerful dominion to rule over a kingdom or a government. This cannot be talking about created planetary bodies in the sky. This is so important to understand the parallels being taught to us by the Holy Spirit. These two ruling lights are representative and symbolical patterns of a much greater hidden spiritual truth.
Here again we can observe one of God’s methods of hiding truth being utilized. In this verse God refers to the “sun” by a completely new and different name, called the “greater light” and the moon, He calls the “lesser light“. This verse contains all of the essential elements found describing the symbolic woman in Revelation 12:1. We can see the Sun, the moon and the stars all being mentioned for the very first time in the Bible. Since it is the first time these celestial objects are all mentioned in the Bible, these verses will help us to understand what these objects represent in Revelation 12. This spiritual law is called the law of first mention and is a common practice that God uses to establish and reveal truth to us. So who rules the day, we found out in lesson 1 that it is Jesus Christ the Sun of Righteousness.
SATAN THE MOON/LESSER LIGHT RULER OF THE DARKNESS
We are now going to begin to search and find scriptures in the Bible related to the ruler of the kingdom of darkness. God chose to conceal Satan as the moon ruler using different techniques in the Bible. But, even if these do not use the literal name or title of the “moon” or “lesser light” that does not mean that we will be unable to see that this is what God is speaking of using different references both direct and indirect. For example, here is a good scripture that is certainly related to our current moon subject indirectly using unstated antithesis truth laws:
1 Jn 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.
John writing to the church tells them that the “true light” is now shining in them. They have come out of the darkness and the night because they have seen the True Light (Jesus) in the internal spiritual realm. But by the law of inverse truth, if there is a true light, then there is also an antithesis unstated “false light” truth. This is an interesting consideration to ponder. You see the moon who rules the darkness does not produce any light of itself or have any ability to shine light without the existence of the greater light called the sun. The sun as we now know is Jesus Christ and we are beginning to learn the moon is the symbol of Satan the ruler of the spiritual darkness (a kingdom without God). The moon is a false light and a lesser light and the Sun is the True Light and the Greater One. Satan must be the ruler of the darkness; Satan must be the ruler of the night by inference. The concepts of a True Light and a false light is very similar to the saying of the Christ and an antichrist. Jesus is the Christ and Satan is the antichrist. These are just basic Bible patterns and principles of opposites being demonstrated to us. Jesus is good and Satan is evil. But, let us confirm all of this in the Bible:
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.
What we see in this verse directed to the church is a fact that declares our enemy to be the rulers of the darkness of this world. Remember that darkness is a spiritual condition of the hearts of unsaved people that are in the spiritual state of night without light (God). This can only be Satan and his demonic cohorts. Just note the direct reference to someone ruling and where they are said to be the ruler of; this of course is the darkness. Also remember that darkness is simply the nonexistence of light (No God). If we take light (God) away, people will be living in darkness.
It is very important to remember that darkness is a synonymous term for night. If Jesus is the spiritual Light of the world, then those who do not know Christ are people that are in a state of spiritual darkness (night). We should also consider the fact that night is the normal time for good people to rest and evil people to do evil. According to Ephesian 6:12 Satan is the ruler of those individuals without Christ living in darkness. If you noticed in Ephesians 6:12, it said the enemy of the church was a spiritual force that consisted of “principalities” and “powers”. If we again go back to Genesis 1:16 and review the Hebrew word H4475 translated as “rule”, it means to govern and have power over. So we can see that God has given Satan the legal right to seize power over everyone still living in his realm of the darkness. But, then we could also say that for those who belong to Christ, they are now ruled by Jesus, the Light of Day and Satan does not have any legal power or authority over us unless we give it back to him and sometimes we do too easily. Let’s look at another New Testament verse about Satan:
1Co 2:6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
This verse is again speaking about Satan being called the “prince” of this world. The Greek word translated as “prince” means “ruler”, the one that is above the rest. This is not speaking of a natural or physical kingdom in this verse, but it is speaking of the order within the spiritual realm of darkness. This world is a hidden reference to the spiritual dark world that we do not perceive with our 5 natural physical senses. What we realize from this verse is that this present world is ruled by an unseen spiritual force that will come to nothing eventually. So let’s expand our knowledge with another verse:
Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Again we see a very clear reference to a “prince” as being a spiritual ruler of the dark world system. Paul writes that we who are now in the church use to obey this prince, but now we should not. The implication is given that we (the church) are now and should remain on the outside from under the control of this dark ruler of the dark world, even though he still is working in those who are not Christians. This Greek word translated as “prince” or “ruler” is clearly stated to be a spiritual being that we cannot perceive with our 5 senses. There is a clear division being stated between two groups of people; one group in the light and one group in the darkness. Here is another witness to exactly what we need to learn today:
Col 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
We can again clearly see a distinction and division being stated between two groups of people. These are clearly stated to be two distinct and different kingdoms and the rulers of the kingdoms are stated to us indirectly and directly. You can clearly see that it directly names Jesus the Son of God to be the ruler of the kingdom that the church now exists within. Indirectly we have to make the association that the “power of darkness” is a reversed and opposite ruler to Jesus (True Light) and he must be the “false light” of the moon. This indirect ruler with power reference can only be Satan the moon we learned in Genesis 1.
We need to understand a new quality of the moon light called deception. The true light of the sun, is so intensely bright that we can see no other lights in the sky normally. But at night the moon can be in any phase or totally dark. This represents the concept of deception. Since we can clearly see the moon at night and it does reflect a light that is not its own, that makes it a type of a deceiver. We learn from reading Revelation 12:9 that Satan is described to be the one that has deceived the whole world. How does he accomplish this? He does it by presenting deceptive thoughts, ideas and suggestions into the human’s mind and if we believe them he has taken us captive. We may talk more about this later.
So we have seen several good Bible references for Satan being called the prince, ruler and power of this present spiritual world of darkness. But, we will see another related scripture found in 2 Corinthians:
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.
Both an explicit and an implied truth is given to us in this verse. We should be able to see that Jesus Christ is recognized to be the spiritual (implied Sun) light, that is trying to shine into the darkened hearts of men and women who believe not the truth. We can logically deduce from this verse that those who believe, are those who the Light of Christ has risen within their spirits and those who are not saved are those that don’t believe in the Light thus still remaining in darkness. This verse implies that those who do not see the light (Jesus) of truth do not see either by 1) their own choice or 2) they have been blocked from seeing the light by Satan’s choice. This inability to see the light can be caused by Satan due to an implied cloud like situation, shadow or other type of blockage within the human mind that causes Jesus (The Word) not to be received internally. These unseeing people are literally spiritually blinded by their own carnal thoughts, ideas or mental distractions. There is an implied spiritual reality that must be casting a shadow internally so that they are unable to see His glorious light. This verse is describing two contrasting spiritual kingdom views between those who are in the darkness versus those that can begin to see daylight.
God also reveals who is blinding those who do no believe in Christ and he is called the “god of this world”, who is again Satan. It is Satan that has blinded their minds so that they cannot see (which literally means to perceive or understand) the light (Word of God) Jesus Christ. Physical blindness is the inability to see natural light clearly, spiritual blindness is the inability to see and understand the spiritual Word of God internally. Blindness can be external or internal according to this verse. Remember Satan who rules the night is said to be the one that keeps the light from shinning into their hearts and he uses thoughts placed in their mind to defeat them.
We are learning that Satan is the symbolic moon who rules those in the darkness and keeps men and women from seeing the True Light through a concept of blocking the light. Because some people see a little false light named Satan (moon) they believe his lies, tricks and deceptions. Our physical moon in the night sky has no life or light in itself. So it is analogous to Satan who is a deceiver with no life or light in him. But do not forget about the natural concept of eclipses that do occur in our natural realm. When this happens the sun’s light can be partially or completely covered or blocked by the moon. This causes humans not to be able to see the true light of the sun for a duration. This happens even though the moon is significantly smaller than the sun. But, since the moon is so much closer to the earth it does not take an object as great as the sun to block the sun. We can learn this by holding up our hand in front of our eyes while looking at the sun. The light from the sun can by blocked by our hand the same as the much larger moon. I hope and pray that you understand these simple natural truths and are transferring this information into the parallels and patterns of the spiritual realm correctly. It would be very helpful to read these lesson more than once.
CONCLUSION
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.
You see in Genesis 1:17 and 18 the reiteration of the truth of God’s word, the sun will rule the day and the moon will rule the night. God prophesies that He will cause two separate spiritual divisions to manifest and one will be called the kingdom of light and the other will be called the kingdom of darkness. Within these kingdoms they will be ruled by two different rulers, one significantly greater than the other. We know that God is light and in Him is no darkness. Therefore we know that God is of the day and that is where the true church now is also, because He is inside of us. These are very powerful spiritual truths that every Christian needs to thoroughly understand and I hope I have helped you to see them.
I’ll leave you in this lesson, with this final bit of information. The fourth day of creation was a prophetic event within human history. God declares that a day with the LORD is as a 1000 years and a 1000 years are even as one day (2 Peter 3:8). If you do the math you will find that Jesus was born 4000 years after Adam was created. In other words Jesus came to the earth on the 4th day of creation as foretold by Genesis 1:16 to bring a spiritual Light to rule men and women and to provide an option out of Satan’s kingdom of darkness. When Jesus came into the dark world as a light He established a spiritual division of rulership that God called Day, meaning He left Satan out in the darkness. This is why the Bible says if Satan would have known what was going to happen, he would not have crucified the LORD of Glory.
Now we have established the identity of two of the major key dependent symbols in the book of Revelation and we should now be able to see clearer the identity of the woman suspect being described causing the other women suspects to move further away from clear focused possibility.
Rev 12:1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman (????) clothed with the sun (Jesus Christ), and the moon (Satan) under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
Are you becoming a great detective and seeing the clues provided by God? So far I have just filled in two of the main dependent symbolic clues and already we have a greatly reduced set of possible suspect candidates for the true identity of the woman in Revelation12. In fact in my mind she can only be one woman in the list of suspect candidates. But, we will continue the study of the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 and hopefully we can all be united and all come to the same conclusion after viewing all of the facts of evidence provided by the Word of God. In my next lesson I will explore further evidence in the Bible for who the moon represents and we will hopefully begin to understand why the woman in Revelation 12 is standing on this moon symbol. We will learn that this is a major clue establishing the moon’s (Satan’s) prophesied position to be under the feet of the Church.
If you want to continue reading this series go to Part 3.
Genesis 3:1-6 – Does Eating Fruit Kill You? Pt 1
(Ver 2.3) This is Part 1 in the series of Bible lessons on “Does Eating Fruit Kill You”. But this is also Part 2 in the series of Bible lessons on the subject of “Understanding Genesis 3” If you would like to start reading the Genesis 3 series with “Part 1” you may click the link and start there. Two of the primary themes found in the 3rd chapter of Genesis are man’s response to God’s instructions and the temptation of man to ignore God’s instructions. If you have been reading my lessons, you probably noticed that I do not stray from controversy and today will be more of the same. The book of Genesis is full of complex subjects, symbolism and many hidden spiritual truths that challenges us to figure out what is literal and what is symbolic of a much higher spiritual truth. Differentiating between the physical and natural things found in Genesis from the spiritual and supernatural things found there is one of the greatest challenges that God has given to us in reading and understanding the Bible. Over and over I have heard Bible teachers teach that the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were literal physical fruit trees in the middle of a natural garden; real physical trees, producing real physical fruit. It is a fascinating idea or concept, but one that I believe does not hold water when analyzed by other scriptures found in the Bible. Too many times people teach the Bible in isolation, ignoring what the rest of the Bible says on the subjects that they are studying. This of course results in private interpretations based upon very limited information and leads us into confusion. In order to correctly interpret the Bible we must always follow God’s rules of Bible Interpretation. If you do not know that God has given us rules to interpret the Bible then you should probably go find out what these are before you do any more study of the Bible.
Well in my last Bible lesson on Genesis 3:1 I feel confident that I proved scripturally that the serpent being described to us was not a literal physical talking snake and that it had to be a symbolic named representation for Satan speaking to the mind of the woman. You can go back to this Genesis 3:1 blog and reread this article to review that information “Was there a Talking Snake in the Garden?” lesson or just read it for the first time if you missed it to understand the concepts. So based upon that information, what else in this 3rd chapter is literal and what is symbolic? We should be able to logically conclude that Adam and Eve were literal spiritual beings in real physical human bodies, but that they were confronted by another liteal spiritual being named Satan that they could not see with their natural eyes. So we automatically see that God combines physical and spiritual realities in the same story and this makes the information more difficult to understand correctly. Let’s look at verse 1 again:
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD god had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
So we see Satan speaking a thought in the mind of Eve, questioning the command of God. Or was it a question? It appears to me to be a statement of fact. So many times we want to look at Satan as the father of lies and think that is all he is capable of speaking, but that is definitely not true. Satan will always use the truth if he thinks it will work to his advantage. Satan is very tricky and many times he will start with the truth and then twist it or misapply it to get you off of what was originally intended. You see the truth was that God did make that statement and told Adam that “every tree in the garden was available to him for food”.
Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Reading this verse in Genesis 2:16, I immediately saw something that the LORD God had taught me about Genesis 3:1. The term “Every” is another ALL INCLUSIVE statement that omits none. Again we can see a group association being established. A set of related items can be associated together by a common name to form a well-known and clearly defined grouping of common items. We can clearly see that in this grouping by God’s definition is included EVERY TREE that was designed to produce ANY food to be physically eaten. If the tree did not produce any natural food to eat then it was not in the defined group. Every fruit tree, every nut tree, every tree that produced any kind of edible food substance must have been included in this one group set. If it was not on the list in the set then it did not have food on it. If God said you can eat from EVERY tree that has food on it, then you can certainly see the major conflict and the problem being stated. Since most Bible teach that the fruit that caused Adam to sin was something like an apple, that interpretation would directly conflict with what God has just spoken to Adam. Was God a liar or are we not understanding what is being taught to us here? I’ll vote that we do not fully understand the interpretation that the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” was a physical fruit tree? Let’s look at the next verse in Genesis 2:
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
You can see the apparent contradiction to the previous statement of God or possibly just a fact that has been missed by most casual Bible readers in that God must have just changed the subject and we missed it. Instead of talking about natural physical food for the body, God is now speaking about a spiritual food and its impact on Adam’s life span on this planet. In Genesis 2:17 God is not talking about natural food trees anywhere but changes subjects to symbolic spiritual trees. I’m sure that you’ve seen the painting of Adam and Eve with the serpent wrapped around a tree and Eve holding an apple. Do understand the contradiction and the problem we have just discovered? If it is a literal fruit tree with physical natural food that is good to eat then God LIED! Since most of you know that it is impossible for God to lie, we must have misunderstood the meaning of God’s statements. What we can say is that in Genesis 2:16, God is speaking of natural physical food and told Adam that they could eat of every tree that has food on it. But in verse 17, God changes the subject and most have just automatically assumed He was talking about the same things. It is a very tricky technique used to conceal the truth in the Bible. Mix spiritual things with natural things and dare people to figure out the difference. God said don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or you will die. This could not have been a natural physical tree for many reasons. First, where is this tree today? Does it still exist? Did it suddenly vanish from the planet? Then there is this, in the book of Proverbs it reveals some very strong information about this tree:
Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it will eat the fruit thereof.
Uh oh? We can clearly see another paradox of Biblical proportions. God tells us how we live and how we die and it is a result of the power of our tongue. What God is doing is showing you the difference that your spoken words can make in your life. The human mouth is a uniquely designed opening in the human body. The mouth takes physical food in, but it also speaks spiritual words out of it. This is why God connects both kinds of trees together in Genesis 2. Adam didn’t die by physically eating anything. It is fascinating that it also speaks of this process as being related to eating fruit, but, this is spiritual fruit and not physical fruit. Is this a coincidence or is God trying to teach us something about the connection of natural fruit to spiritual fruit. Isn’t fruit what Eve and Adam are said to have eaten?
Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat.
This has to be a spiritual tree for several reasons. First, God said that every natural tree that was good for food to eat was permitted to eat from. Then Eve saw the tree in her mind and it was a tree that could make one wise. Does eating natural fruit make you wiser? If you think it does you are deceived. Nothing you eat physically makes you smarter. This spiritual tree is an interesting concept; Eve could see it and understood that it would make her wise. Science for a long time has tried to claim certain foods make you smarter, but that is not what this is talking about. There is a dramatic difference between being smart and being wise. A lot of people know things, but have no common sense. I guess I won’t go there today though. I want to shift focus and show you some other related verses in the Bible that are very relevant to our current subject. This is what Jesus said about what we eat physically:
Matthew 15:17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out at into the draught.
Here are words directly from God about natural food. He asks us a simple question; “don’t you understand the difference between natural things and spiritual things”? He tells us that whatever we put into our mouths goes to our stomachs and is then flushed down the toilet. He is declaring a very simple truth that this is not what killed Adam. God says that this is not what makes a man unclean. If you continue reading in the chapter Jesus says that it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man, because these are the things from his spirit. This is what kills a man physically.
Matthew 15:18 But those things which proceed out f the mouth come forth from the heart (spirit) and they defile the man.
It is so fascinating when you put things together correctly in the Bible. You can see that Jesus tells us what killed Adam and we didn’t even know it until now. Too many times we try to interpret the Bible with our natural minds and we just need to figure out what God says about the subject to really understand it. God’s perspective is so much better than ours. Don’t you think? What we have seen is information found in the Bible that tells us that a spiritual reality is more important to see than a natural one that is not true. So people, who teach that there was a physical apple tree that Eve picked fruit from and ate it to kill them, do not understand many things about what God wants to teach them in the Bible. I hope if nothing else that I have challenged you to think differently today and not to try to understand the Bible story of Adam and Eve in isolation from the other related verses found in the Bible.
If you want to continue reading this series you can continue to “Part 2”.
Concealing Information From God’s Enemies!
This will obviously be controversial to some. But nevertheless this is what God says so I stand by it. What I have been attempting to do is give you some keys to understanding the Bible. If we can understand God’s intentions, motivations and purposes for the book, we will better understand what is written. So in today’s blog I want to give you another perspective of why the Bible is so hard to understand, to many. This principle is based upon the concept that God has enemies and that in order for God not reveal everything to His enemies, He has to write things in an encoded method. , This encoded method allows God’s people to see the truth while at the same time keeping the information from His enemies. It is a very tricky way of writing with many complex twists, mysteries, hidden meanings, symbolic representations and other tricky methods. I call it God’s method of hiding the truth in plain site.
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosever therefore will be a friend to the world is the enemy of God.
From this verse in James we see a fact revealed that God has enemies. If you didn’t know that it would be good to study and find out who those enemies are. I’ve heard some fools think and teach that Satan was just a pawn of God. A spirit being that appears before God to get permission to make somebody sick or kill their children. People read things like in the book of Job and make too many assumptions. Satan is not working for God. Satan doesn’t have to ask for permission to put some evil plan into work against you. Most of the time it is our own fault when Satan attacks us. We open the door to the enemy and let him do the things he does. There are a lot of Bible verses that I could give you to back that statement, but I won’t spend a lot of time on that subject since that is not what we are talking about.
This may also be news to some of you and maybe you’ve never heard anyone teach on this, but God has enemies. The church has the same enemies. Satan is still a spiritual force in the world in opposition to the church and our God. Satan I think sometimes people look at him as this evil red suited, horned and pitch fork carrying spiritual entity that resides in hell and comes to earth to bug us when he wants to. Nothing could be further from the truth. Satan does not live in hell, he has never been to hell, doesn’t want to go to hell and he’s doing everything in his power to stay out of there. But there is good news Satan doesn’t know everything. He can read the same Bible that we can but he doesn’t understand it any better than anyone else in the world. As God gives new revelation to the church, that is the first time Satan hears about most of this stuff. There are scriptures that back this up. Look at this verse:
1 Corinthians 2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew for had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
You see from this verse that Satan and his fallen angels are ignorant of the plan of God. This verse says clearly if they had known the consequences to killing God on the cross, they would not have done it. So apparently we don’t yet fully comprehend the ramifications and consequences of God being nailed to the cross. Not only did He provide salvation for us, he sealed the fate of Satan. Interesting isn’t it? So when Jesus said I didn’t come to do away with the law but to fulfill it he was saying that he was here to fulfill those things which were written about him.
Luke 24:44 And he said unto them, These are they words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me.
John 5:39 Search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
So couldn’t Satan read the Bible and see and hear what was being said in the synagogues? Sure he could, the problem is he didn’t understand anything that was written and neither did any man. Jesus fulfilled countless prophesies in his birth, life, death, burial and resurrection and Satan didn’t know any of them. I can only assume that Satan thought by killing God he could rid him from his planet and now he could go on and continue to rule for as long as he wanted. These are all interesting thoughts but these concepts are also applicable to the unsaved human race. Notice what is written on this subject and the words spoken by Jesus himself:
Mark 4:11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.
Jesus speaking to his disciples said the mystery is for only you to know, those that are on the outside they will never know or understand the things of God. It has always occurred to me that people in hell don’t know why they are there. They don’t have a clue that Jesus paid for their sins and they rejected the free gift of salvation. I wonder if someday they will come to the knowledge and realize the things they missed out on. So were we enemies of God before salvation? Here is a scripture that says we were:
Romans 5:10 For if, we 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 we discover a fact that God said that while we were still enemies, Jesus paid the price to reconcile us back to God. This of course was one of the primary reasons for the death of Jesus on the cross. Clearly it was not all that transpired, but I’m sure glad He did that for us.
So what can we conclude from all of these scriptures? If God had enemies, He was forced to conceal information in His Word in a manner that His enemies would not understand what He was doing that would effect them. We will eventually discuss the methods in more depth that God used to accomplish this, but that is enough for now.
What Does God Think About Abortion?
(Ver 1.5) This is Part 1 of a series of advanced Bible lessons about what God thinks about the subject of abortion. In the news a while back there was a great controversial clash of opinion between the left and the right that took place. It appears that one of the nation’s biggest Catholic Universities invited one of our liberal Democratic Presidents to speak at their graduation commencement. The single point of confrontation was a delicate subject that has divided our nation since 973. So what is this subject that has caused such a major division and debate? It is the subject of abortion. This subject came to the forefront of U.S. history in 1973 when the Supreme Court ruled abortion to be legal in a case named Roe vs. Wade. It still amazes me how 9 people on a court can make such sweeping broad rulings of moral values. The 7 members of the Supreme Court that ruled in favor of legalized abortion were named 1) Harry Blackburn, 2) Warren Burger, 3) William Douglas, 4) William Brennan, 5) Potter Stewart, 6) Thurgood Marshall and 7) Lewis Powell. According to Deuteronomy 19:10 I believe these seven men have a lot of innocent blood upon their hands. I hope that they regretted their choice and repented before they died.
INTRODUCTION
Let’s begin with the basics. What is an abortion and how is it defined? One dictionary say abortion is “a medical procedure to end a pregnancy”. It uses medicine or surgery to remove the embryo, fetus and placenta from the female uterus. That was a medical description from an abortion provider. But the Merriam-Webster dictionary puts it this way gaining additional new and important information. They say abortion is the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, and resulting in the death of the embryo or fetus. Wow, that changes things dramatically. Isn’t it interesting how some organizations omit words that are not desired to promote a result that would not be allowed after birth? One definition admits there is a death that occurs while the other just leaves this detail out completely. I think as we study the Bible we will learn that Merriam-Webster was more in alignment with God.
It seems that almost everyone in the world has some opinion on this matter and that is really the basis and the root of the entire problem of conflict. You see what I think about the subject of abortion and what you think about abortion really doesn’t matter or count for anything after we die. I mean who are you and who am I? The University speaking Liberal Democrat President’s opinion was that we should all just try to find some common ground and get along on this subject of abortion. But what he thinks really doesn’t matter or count for anything either. In fact what the Supreme Court’s opinion is on the subject of abortion doesn’t really matter or count for anything at all. All human opinion is baseless unless we agree with the one that created us.
What should only matter to you and I and concern us, is what does God think about the subject of abortion? If we could go instantly up to heaven and stand before the throne of God to ask Him a direct question on His thoughts on the subject of abortion, what would His answer be to us? Would God’s opinion change our opinion on the subject or would we still hang on to our opinion in spite of whatever He said about the subject? We should really think about that before we answer.
I wonder if we were confronted by God and told we were wrong about something, what would our response be? We could say I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was wrong and I’ll change immediately to be right. That would be the response of someone that was humble and feared God. Or we could say, I was wrong but then try to explain why we believed what we did was right at the time to justify our thoughts, opinions and actions. We could even try to be like an Adam or an Eve and pass the responsibility to someone else and redirect the attention away from ourselves and say it was just not my fault that I believed abortion was good and right, the court and the President made me believe it was right. We could be a real idiot and say sorry God, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m not going to change my opinion or what I think no matter what You say or do. This last type of person has absolutely no fear of God. Or we could just care less and be indifferent. Our attitude could be just let people do whatever they want to do, it doesn’t have anything to do with me.
Which kind of person are you? What is your attitude towards this subject? If you are here on earth and can read this lesson from the Bible you must have not been aborted by your mother. Are you happy that your mother didn’t kill you before you were born? I personally believe that now is the time to learn the truth and change our opinions to conform with God’s thoughts on this subject. I’ll let you know right now that there will be no opportunities on judgment day to defend our wrong thoughts, opinions and actions we lived today. If we think there will be this chance, please show us the Bible verse that says this.
BEGINNING TO SEE GOD’S VIEWPOINT
If we proclaim ourselves to be a Christian then we should be aware that the Bible is the inerrant Word of the Living Creator God. The Bible is a directly written personal message to us from our God. The Bible was written for our benefit so that we could know this awesome God who none of us has ever seen before. So what a Christian does should follow God’s Word, His thoughts, His commandments, His instructions and the examples that He has given to us in this book. Let me show something that Jesus said to help confirm this point:
Mat 7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
Jesus said a wise man is one that hears the Word of God and does it. What is the opposite of that statement? The antithesis truth would be “a fool hears the word of God but does not do it”. What are you today a wise man or a foolish man? We all make this choice everyday in everything we do. So what does the Bible say on the subject of Abortion? And of course what would make us become a wise man that we could learn to change to do? Wisdom always begins with knowledge and knowledge must begin with learning about what God says on the subject abortion?
Like many other modern day Bible subjects the the word “abortion” is not found in the entire book, but that does not mean that God did not give us His thoughts on the subject. All we have to do to become wise is to study and find out what He has said on the subject using the other synonymous words that ARE found on the subject, so let’s do that. I want us to start this lesson by reading a very important foundational verse that is short but directly to the point on the subject of abortion.
Exo 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
What does God say in this verse? It is one of the stated 10 commandments of God from the Old Testament. Are these a part of the words and of the commandments that Jesus was speaking of for a wise human to do? The Hebrew word H7523 translated as kill in this verse means “You shalt not commit murder”. What exactly is abortion if not murder? We learned earlier that Webster defined abortion as a death. To cause an innocent life to cease from continuing and developing in existence is clearly murder in Bible terms. What is the difference from a developing child inside the womb to one that has exited the womb and is still developing for another 18 years. If it is OK, to kill a developing child inside the womb, would it be fine to kill the same developing child outside the womb? Why is it today that outside the womb killing a child is called murder and killing a child inside the womb it is called abortion? They are both the same child! They are both in developing stages of growth. They both have the exact same DNA structure. Here is where the liberals have become creative to redefine that a living baby in the womb is not really a child but rather just a embryo or fetus and therefore not a viable self sustaining life form. By redefining a living developing child to be simply being labeled as an embryo or fetus they have dehumanized the living child, him or her and eliminated them for qualification as a living being for murder. Why do they not use this same logic when they have passed laws to protect the eggs of unborn eagles? Please answer this question, can a newly born baby child survive on its own outside the womb without assistance? Who is going to feed the child? Who is going to care for the child? Since they are not self sustaining do they fall into the same category and the unborn child that is fed by the umbilical cord that is attached to their mother? Do you see any problems with this type of thinking between how we should treat the child on the inside differently than how we treat them on the outside?
Did you know that destroying an unborn baby eagle bird in its egg is a punishable criminal offense? People can go to jail for killing (murdering) an eagle egg! Clearly it is the exact same type of stated unsustainable developing life form as the child (embryo or fetus) in the mother. Can you tell me what the difference is between an eagle egg and an unborn human baby? Yet one developing life form has gained a much greater value than the other in some people’s mind based upon some unknown reasoning. Why is that? How can that not be viewed as the same logical comparison that should not be ignored? Is the value in one species increased simply based upon the numbers of that species; are numbers what really matter? Because the eagle is endangered, does that make them more valuable to be protected than humans that are more populous on the earth? What do you think? Does God care more about eagles or for people? Did you know Jesus answered this question for you? In Matthew 10:29-31 Jesus speaking of two sparrows says God knows about them, but then tells humans they are much more valuable to Him than many sparrows.
Let me ask you this question, did God come to the earth to save just sparrows and eagles or did He come to save human people? If we do not know the answer to that question then we are in big trouble. John 3:16 gives us the answer by informing us that God loved us in the world so much that He died to save all those that believed in Him. Only a human is capable of believing.
Let us permit God to speak to us further on the subject of abortion and tell us His thoughts and then let us see how we react to His words:
Jdg 13:4 Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing:
Jdg 13:5 For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Jdg 13:6 Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name:
There are so many things to learn from the Bible, if we are open to the truths that it contains. We begin to learn when we allow God to show us what it actually means. Here is an example of a woman that had not had any children and the messenger of God shows up at her house and tells her that she is going to have a son. How did God know this? I think that is a really fair question and that the answer is probably more revealing than you can imagine. God knew of the child and what he was going to become and do long before he was even conceived. I will tell you that knowing this Bible fact alone will eliminate a woman’s right to choose an abortion. If God knows every child before they are born or even conceived and what they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to accomplish within their life, then who is a woman to overrule God to decide that the child should not be worthy to be born?
We know for a fact from biology class that the sex of a baby is determined by the male sperm from the father. Yet God knew which sperm cell was going to fertilize the egg in this woman in order for a male baby to be born. God knew that there was a future deliverer about to be born and according to many today, they would have said that this decision for him to be born should have been left up to the woman who conceived him. Is that what God thinks? Does a woman’s desire play a role in the plan of God for a child? Would a woman wanting a child be different from another woman not wanting her child? I personally do not believe it does based upon the Bible. We will hopefully look at this question more later.
Did you notice that God gave this woman specific instructions about what she did before she gave birth or this child was even conceived yet? In verse 4 God tells the woman not to eat or drink things that are bad for her or for the future baby. WOW, that is clearly a message that is very profound. God was basically informing us that what she did would affect the future child’s ability to fulfill his purpose. This truth places human responsibility on the mother that is way beyond what the world thinks right now. I believe that women and men will be judged for what they did to their future children good or bad.
This woman, the future mother described in Judges was told not to drink or eat any unclean thing before she conceived and while she carried this child in her womb. Why is this significant? If this was not a viable life form, why does it even matter what a woman eats or drinks? No, you see it does matter because this is not just an embryo or fetus in the eyes of God, or a blob of developing cells. In the eyes of God this was a child and God said it matters what you feed him. If it matters to God about this child and what he is fed in the womb, then it also matters to God and what every other child is fed in the womb. If it matters to God what this child was fed before it was born, then it clearly matters to God if this child was born at all.
Whose responsibility was it to eat the right things and drink the right things for the development of this baby? Was it God’s responsibility to see that his mother did the right thing or not? Did God make her do the right things here? These are not loaded questions! These are not hard questions to figure out the answers to either. If it matters to God about one baby in the Bible, then it matters to God about every baby that is supposed to be born. God does not treat one baby differently than the other, only people do that.
So what happens to all of God’s future planned roles and responsibilities of all of these babies that are aborted in our world by the mother’s choice to override God’s will? Do you think that the aborted children’s responsibilities in this life are just given to others that were not aborted? Or do you think that it is possible that there are a bunch of things that are not taking place and getting done, because the one that was going to find the cure for cancer was aborted? What if this child in Judges would have been aborted? What if his mother would have drunk wine and ignored the commandment of God? Would God had another deliverer to raise up or would Israel not have been delivered? I personally believe that this is a major problem with abortion and that there would have been no other one to take this child’s place.
Therefore, how many doctors, lawyers and teachers do you think have been aborted since 1973? Who or what exactly are we missing out on? Because of the abortion of the millions of future skilled workers, tax payers and roles that are being unfulfilled. How many church pastor’s, preachers, teachers and evangelists have been eliminated from coming into the world to help others get saved and not go to hell? Satan has used murdering people that some call doctors to create a population imbalance and reduction. Satan is trying his best to eliminate humans from coming into this world because they are threat to him.
CONCLUSION
This was just the introduction to the subject of “What does God think about Abortion?” I pray that you can begin to see from just one story in the Bible that it must matter greatly to God if a child is born. Why do you think Satan wants to kill all of the future children and keep them from entering the world? Could it be that one of these are the preacher that will reach the whole world with the truth? Does Satan think by eliminating future Christians that he can remain on this planet a little longer? I tell you that there are many things to consider on this subject. One is why has Satan been motivated to kill human children even since early in the book of Genesis? When Moses was born babies were tossed into the river to be drown, if they were males. This was a repeated occurrence when Jesus was born in Bethlehem and every child under 2 years old was killed. You see Satan is attempting to fight against whatever God has planned and is doing. We need to learn the truth and figure out whose side we want to be on. Abortion is a demonic evil plan of Satan to eliminate future humans and potential Christians. God is a pro-life God and is opposed to ALL abortion. We will continue to learn this as we go through this series of Bible lessons. Thanks for reading and studying the Bible with us today. I pray that what was stated has helped you to see what God really thinks on the subject and importance of future life.
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons on what God thinks about abortion, please continue to “Part 2“.
Is God Really in Control of Everything? Pt 2
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 2 in a series of Bible lessons concerning the nature and character of God and the subject of “Is God in Control of Everything that Happens”. If you have not read “Part 1“, I would recommend that you go there to begin your study in this series. In first lesson I asked a direct question that has bothered a lot of people in the church. Is God really in control of everything that happens in the world? This question often goes into deeper thoughts of why is there so much evil in the world if God is really controlling everything and that becomes a much more difficult question to answer. While we can come up with many of man’s opinions and theories on this subject, we should determine what God thinks about it by examining His Word for clues to determine the actual truth. I have already given you several great scriptures on this subject in my last lesson that conveyed a transfer of ownership and responsibility from God to man, concerning the dominion of the earth. I don’t know if people think I provided enough evidence or not for this belief, so I will provide another verse witness that also says God put man in control of what happens on this planet:
Hebrews 2:7 Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands:
If you read the preceding verse you will see this is speaking of Man or Adam and the sons of Adam. It says God has crowned us and that denotes that we were given rule and authority of this earth. Then the verse says man was put over the works of God’s hands. To be put over something denotes clear responsibility and accountability for not performing what was expected. Again if I gave you a million dollars, do I have any say after you take it as to what you do with it? No I don’t. The money would belong to you and now you are responsible to keep it or to burn it or do whatever you want to do with it. That is called a transfer of power and authority. This is exactly what God did for Adam in Genesis 1:26.
Then in my last blog I ended up with a verse in Matthew that had Jesus telling us that “All power both in heaven and earth has been given to me.” The clear inference given is that before His resurrection and ascension, not everything was under God’s control. So now we have a dilemma that God is controlling everything again and we still see evil, murder, terror, rape and death still prevalent in the earth. So what is the situation and who is really in control still needs to be resolved using the Word of God.
Before I go there, let’s determine who had dominion over the World before the resurrection of Christ. We can see from earlier scriptures that dominion and authority was given to Adam to control everything on the earth and in the earth, including the air and the sea. So what happened? Did Adam transfer this gifted ownership, rule and authority to someone else? I gave you a clue that Adam did this by showing you what God said about Satan in 2 Corinthians 4:4 being called the “god” of this world. What we learn from this single scripture is that if Satan has become the god of this world then how can God be in control of everything that happens here? This is a hotly debated new topic. Many theologians believe that Satan is God’s pawn and can do only what God gives him permission to do but that is in violation of most revealed scriptures. For example, we should be able to see this more clearly by examining this verse when God was present on the earth in the flesh:
Luke 4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
We can clearly learn and see that Jesus in this temptation of Satan is being taken up to a very high mountain and is shown “ALL” of the kingdoms of this world. That information would leave nothing out, would it? Then Satan makes this statement to Jesus that is absolutely critical to see and understand:
Luke 4:6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it.
This is an incredible statement of revelation being given to us by God’s Word. According to what is spoken by Satan all authority over the planet was “delivered” or “given” to him by someone. That statement denotes new ownership and control rights thereof. Satan then says that he is able to give it to whoever he wants to. Remember who Satan is speaking to, this is God in the flesh who created him and he is either very stupid or he is telling the truth. God would certainly know if Satan is not speaking the truth and He would have just said you are a liar, leave me and Satan would have had to leave if God was in control. So we can see a very clear statement concerning who is in control of what happens on the earth and that it is not God. This is of course Satan speaking so many will say it is just a lie, but if it is just a lie then it could not have been a temptation to Jesus. It has to be a real offer to Jesus in order for it to be a temptation for Him to take it. Remember when Jesus walked the earth during his ministry? Demons and religious people would constantly question his authority and his right to be here and to do what he was doing. You’ll find instances like this in Mark 1:24, Luke 4:34 and Matthew 8:29. Demons when confronted would question Jesus and call him God and ask what right do you have to do these things to them.
Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
This verse occurs after Jesus was raised from the dead. Here Jesus literally tells us that authority has been given back to him here on the earth and even in heaven. Why would God tell us that this authority was again transferred to Him if He already had it? Can you answer me that? So apparently Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection caused something to occur to transfer control back from Satan. In 1 Corinthians 2:8 we have a statement about Satan and his demon cohorts that says, “If they would have only known what was going to happen, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.” That was my paraphrase of the verse, but that is what it basically says. You are free to go and study this verse for yourself. The demons are called “princes” and that Greek word simply means a ruler of this world. Therefore we know that if Satan would have known the consequences of killing Christ on the cross then he would not have done it. So apparently killing Christ caused a major and even devastating blow to his plan. I hope that you are grasping these concepts give to us by God.
Apparently from what I can see in the Bible God got back what Adam had lost and given away to Satan through the works of Jesus Christ who was a literal son of Adam (man) by his death on the cross. Jesus was a direct descendant of the first man Adam. Jesus being a man, had the right to take man’s authority back, as God in heaven He did not have the right to do this since it was God in heaven that gave the authority to man and man could do with it whatever he liked. If you go through the law in the Old Testament you will see what gave Jesus the right to redeem what Adam had sold, but I won’t go into all of that detail today in this lesson.
So who is in control today? We still have a problem with responsibility? Who’s responsibility is it to preach the gospel? Who is going to get men saved? Who is going to be the missionary to Africa and Asia? Is this God’s responsibility? Is God going to send angels to preach His Word? I don’t think so. No what we have is a statement by Jesus that helps us to see what happened. Earlier I gave you the verse in Matthew after Jesus was raised from the dead and He said “all power is given to me both in heaven and the earth, what was His next statement to us in the church? Let’s read this verse and see what Jesus did with His new authority:
Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Did you see it? Here we have another transfer of authority and responsibility. We have been given the highest authority on the earth again being transferred this authority by the LORD JESUS! Jesus said “I have been given all power, now you go.” The “Now you go” is a conveyance of authority back to the church. Have you ever asked yourself this question “Why if all authority was given to Jesus, wasn’t Satan just cast out into hell?” That of course is a very interesting question to think on. Apparently something still gives Satan the right to be here on the earth, even if he doesn’t have authority over Christians any more. Perhaps you need to go back and read the verse that I mentioned earlier in Matthew 8:29. This demon that Jesus confronted in this verse knew that there was a set time for them to be here. That is why this demon said are you come to torment us before the time? We need to understand what this time is because it is rapidly approaching. There is coming a time when the devil and his demons will be cast into hell and that will be the end of them until after the 1000 year time of rest occurs but I will not teach that in this lesson today.
The Bible is such a rich and complex book, with so much deep information spiritual information given to us in it. It certainly is challenging to put all of the puzzle pieces together correctly, but with God’s help I believe we will come to a mature understanding of the truth before Jesus returns. Thank you for taking the time to read my Bible studies. I hope and pray that something positive was planted in your spirit that will produce much fruit for the kingdom of God. Be continually blessed and come back and share these lessons with your friends.
6 Days of Creation – Genesis Chapter 1 Review
(Ver 1.2) In my Blogs the last couple of weeks I have been exploring an overview of the 6 days of creation and teaching how each day fits a prophetical view into God’s timeline for the 6000 year period of human history. I know this is a controversial viewpoint and it is probably brand new information to many. However, it is there if you research it and studyit from a prophetic perspective. Some have probably wondered how did I come up with the idea that the 6 days of creation were prophetic windows? I beleieve that it is just what the Bible says and therefore it is not my opinion or my personal interpretation of what God says. What we must do is to allow the Bible to interpret itself, so we must look for God’s definitions, His commentary and explanations and we must put these together with the words written in Genesis to understand them. Look at this verse and see what it says for yourself:
Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things which are not,…
You see from this verse God says I have declared or stated the end from the beginning. In other words God has prophesied the ending from the beginning. Genesis chapter 1 definitely declares the beginning of our current world system. So somewhere in that description is information about what is going to occur in our history and its final conslusion. To declare something that has not occurred is clearly a statement of prophetic proportion. The only to verify that a prophecy is from a real prophet is for us to examine the words and see if they have been fullfilled, have transpired or are coming to pass presently. Here is another scripture that speaks to us along these lines:
Ecclesiastes 1:9 The thing that has been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done, is that which shall be done,….
Again in this verse we see a powerful reference of something to look for when reading and studying the Bible. We can use these words to imply that God declares that what He has done during creation is that which will occur again. You see as I have read the Bible I have discovered a series of repeated patterns that have occured over and over. That is why that I believe that we should study the book of beginnings like it was a raod map to our future. Of course since we are at the very end of the 6th day or 6000 years, we should realize that we do not have very much time left. This actually makes our research more sure, since the majority of recorded history has already occurred and we are nearing the end now.
We started the chapter analysis by looking at the fact that the earth as stated in the Bible is much older than 6000 years, but we are not specifically told how old it is anywhere. It could very well be millions or billions of years old. We looked at scripture that speaks to us about a pre-Adamic civilization or world that existed prior to our current world system. We found scriptures that indicate that this world was completely destroyed and apparently God started over with us, or for us.
We looked at the work of God during creation and identified God’s first act as being division. God divided Light from darkness. We can imply from this that prophetically speaking God is breaking away or dividing himself from something that He does not want to associate with. At least 3 times in the chapter we can see that God divided something from something else. I can tell you right now that most Bible teachers and preachers don’t have a clue to the significance of these words of God so they ignore them. I’m sorry that I just don’t have time to teach you all of that right now.
The next significant point about creation is how God created. I might have alluded to the fact that God looked at the problem and always spoke the answer or the solution. As it is written in the New Testament, God is a God who calls those things that be not as though they were and as we can see from creation, they become exactly what they are called. Since man is made in the image of God this implies that man operates the exact same way that God operates. Of course not at the same level or capacity that God is, but you would be amazed at what the Bible says about our spoken words and the Bible is very strong in this area and says many things that are very hard to accept by many Christians.
During our study we identified some of the key symbolic elements and researching them in the scriptures discovered what they meant and how they are applied within creation. Light is symbolic of God. Seas are symbolic of people. Day and night are symbolic of the conditions of men’s hearts. Some have allowed the sun of God to light their hearts and then others have been kept in darkness because they have allowed Satan to blind their minds. We have identified the symbolic Sun as being Jesus Christ. Then we have identified the symbolic moon as being Satan, the ruler of the darkness.
In the creation of Adam on day 6 I took you through an analysis of the Hebrew words for man and Adam as being the same word. I then showed you from scripture how Genesis 1:27 should have been translated as Adam instead of man, because God calls both the male and the female by the same name. The inference of and application to marriage is of course easily seen.
Finally we looked at the coming into maturity of the body of Christ. We also looked at the delegated authority of the body of Christ. We are at the end of Day 6 of God’s established timetable and God has the planned return of Jesus Christ next on the agenda. I believe very strongly that Jesus’ return is not very long from now. I know I did not attempt to cover everything that the chapter speaks about. My goal was to give you some new perspectives and things to think about that you hadn’t seen before. Things that can be tremendously important to understanding a large portion of the Bible. I hope you have enjoyed Chapter 1 of Genesis and we will move into Chapter 2 next. I probably will not go verse by verse but I will change to a larger what are the key concepts given to us level of study. There are some awesome things in Chapter 2 and 3 if you can see them. So continue reading in Genesis and see what else God has to reveal to us.
Six Things Satan Doesn’t Want You To Know About Himself
(ver 1.7) This Part 1 in a series of Bible lessons about things that Satan does not want you know about him. Satan in the Bible is called by so many different names, titles, characteristics, symbols and descriptions. Each one of these that were given to us by God reveal Satan in a new way for us to learn from. For example, in Revelation 12:9 the name Satan is given to us and it is directly linked to be the symbolic “Great Red Dragon” in the book of Revelation. Satan is then further revealed as the “ancient serpent” in Genesis 3:1 in the same verse. Since Satan is called both the serpent in the garden in Genesis and now the Great Dragon in Revelation we learn from these two symbolic titles that he has gained significant power and strength. But maybe you did not know that and learned something brand new. In other places in the Bible Satan is also called the “deceiver” and the “father of lies” by God. If you wold like to see a more complete list of these Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols for Satan in the Bible you can go read that reference document and find those that I have been shown by God up until this point in time. Satan has had an explicit evil agenda in place ever since he deceived Eve and caused Adam to sin in the garden. Satan has implemented this plan based upon misconceptions and misdirection that diverts your attntion away from you finding or knowing the truth. There are a number of major things that Satan doesn’t want you to know about him. He tries very hard to keep these truths secret from you because they will cause you to think differently about your abilities and position in Christ Jesus. Today I’m going to tell you some of these guarded secrets that were revealed in the Bible for our benefit placed there by our wise and mighty God to help teach us the truth about our enemy.
NUMBER 1
1. Satan DOES NOT Want You To Know That He Exists
I know now as a Christian that Satan is a real spiritual being, but there was a time that I did not believe in his existence. Many people are in the exact same ignorant boat as I was when I did not believe in the existence of spiritual things. Unsaved people and even many new carnal Christians are generally very oblivious to spiritual realities, because they are consumed with natural things like drugs, alcohol, sex, money, power, fame, sports, food, music, and etc. Not only do most people in the kingdom of darkness not know that Satan, evil spirits, fallen angels and demons exist, they also do not understand that they themselves are also a spirit being that is simply living here on the earth in a natural physical body. Oh, sure there is a fascination in the world with the supernatural and spirits on TV, in movies and in video games. But these are generally put out by Satan as a distraction to the truth to keep people from finding out that he is real and to learn how he operates with them daily. Satan promotes these fictional TV shows, entertainments and activities to gain access into the minds of people to deceive them further from the truth. As long as you do not know that there is a real spiritual enemy in this world named Satan, you will never know that you need to resist him or fight against what he is doing in your life. We learn of the existence of Satan by reading the Bible and that is our only reliable source of any proof or evidence for his existence. If you do not believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God then you are in serious trouble looking for invalid sources of truth in the other books of the world. You can read about Satan’s existence and activities like in Mark 4:15, Luke 4:8, Luke 13:16 and Acts 26:18 to name only a few verses that teach of his existence. I pray that you learn to study this subject in order to learn that Satan does exist and that he is your enemy.
NUMBER 2
2. Satan DOES NOT Want You To Know How He Operates
Recently I wrote a Bible lesson on the subject Was There a Physical Talking Snake in the Garden of Eden that deceived Eve. If you read that lesson then you know that there was not a literal talking serpent in the garden. It is illegal for Satan to tempt people supernaturally and that is not how he generally operates because of the spiritual laws created by God. TV shows and movies that promote supernatural activity are created by Satan to be pure distractions to how he normally comes to us to operate. Satan uses, mostly mental thoughts, ideas and suggestions to influence and control your behavior. For example, if you have been having thoughts or ideas about suicide these are demonically inspired to try to get you to do what he is suggesting. The source of evil thoughts and these bad influential ideas are coming from Satan. Satan can even place strong desires within you to help guide you into doing wrong. These are very common ways of how spirit beings interact with any natural human being. I hope that you understand this because it will be the same for you.
The main emphasis from this section is to teach you to watch your thoughts. What I have been trying to say is that these evil thoughts in your mind to hurt someone are coming from Satan to attempt to get you do something that you shouldn’t. Have you ever considered how much people talk after a school shooting occurs about the factor of mental illness? Every crazy school shooter was caused by Satan’s barrage of evil thoughts to kill people. Every shooter was tormented by these thoughts until they finally gave into them. That is how Satan works and if you do not know this then you are at risk of the same. Satan comes to humans with thoughts of evil and these will always be very subtle attempts to control you to do what he wants you to do. I’ll say this again, every thought that you have is not from God or comes from your own mind. Let me give you a Bible verse that will help confirm this truth if you can see it:
2Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Why would God tell a Christian to guard their thoughts if none of these came from Satan? That would not make any logical sense. Why does anyone guard something? Guarding the President is normally done to keep evil from coming near him to do him harm. This is the exact same concept that God is speaking of here in this verse. You see I once had a man leave me a comment on my Bible lesson about homosexuality and he said he had these thoughts for other boys and men since he was a young child and he said that this proved that God created him this way. I tried to tell him that these were Satan’ thoughts that were given to him to try to steer him away from the truth but he refused to listen to me. Any thought that is contrary to the Bible is from the devil. If you are standing on the top ledge of the Grand Canyon and you suddenly get the thought to jump off then it would be really stupid if you didn’t realize that this thought was from Satan and you did it and went to hell. Learn to do what God teaches about your negative thoughts of influence and cast them down.
NUMBER 3
3. Satan DOES NOT Want You to Know that He Can’t Be Everywhere At Once
In the Old Testament we have a greatly misunderstood book of the Bible called the Book of Job. I will not attempt to teach this book today, but I will draw out some valuable information that we can learn from it about Satan. In this story, Satan is said to appear before God in heaven. God asks Satan, where have you been? Right there that question teaches us an extremely critical fact about Satan. Perhaps you missed it? Satan’s reply to God was that he has been going to and fro across the earth and from walking up and down in it (Job 1:7). From the presence of God’s question and Satan’s reply we can learn so very much about our enemy. The first thing to learn is that Satan is not on the earth when he said this. The second thing to learn is that Satan is not everywhere all at once. In theological terms Satan is not omnipresent and cannot be everywhere at the same time like God can. If Satan has to travel from place to place on the earth then he can only be in one place at a time. That is interesting isn’t it? In the New Testament we get some further confirmation of this fact by reading:
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour;
You can see the same basic information being given to us in this verse. Satan is stalking about the earth looking for someone that he can attack. The statement implications being given to us is that he can’t attack everybody at the same time. You also see that he has to walk from place to place in order to seek for someone to attack. We can conclude from these two verses that Satan is not everywhere at once. Therefore Satan is NOT omnipresent like God is. Now having said all of that we don’t know how many demons and fallen angels that Satan has under his control. Revelation 12:4 tells us that 1/3 of the angels fell with him. But, we don’t know how many total angels there were to start with. From information found in Hebrews there seems to be a bunch of them and it calls their number innumerable. There is also a story in the Gospels where Jesus casts out a legion of demons from just one man. This shows us that one man can have hundreds of spirits in him at once. Therefore while the devil cannot be present with everyone at the same time, he can still send his demons to them and this makes him appear like he is everywhere at the same time. This is just some good information to learn about your enemy.
NUMBER 4
4. Satan DOES NOT Want You To Know That His Time Is Short
Revelation 12:12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens and ye that dwell in them, Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
This verse informs us that Satan is very angry with something or someone. Why? Because he knows his time is very short. Satan is aware of an end time. You did realize that, didn’t you? Many people in the world are oblivious that the end is near. They think everything has happened the same way from the beginning and everything will just continue on like this for ever (2 Peter 3:4). However, Satan and the demons are aware that their time is so very short. Here is a Bible verse that will help to see that the devils knew there was coming an end time even when Jesus was present on the earth:
Matthew 8:29 And behold, they cried out saying What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? are thou come hither to torment us before the time?
These are the words of the demons that possessed a man where Jesus was going. These demons exclaimed who exactly Jesus was. Why were they questioning Jesus’ right to be there? Then they ask him have you come to torment us before the time. What time are they talking about? It is amazing that these spiritual beings are aware that there is coming a time of torment. All of this occurs still today, men walk about clueless to the times and the seasons while Satan and his forces know that they are almost done.
NUMBER 5
5. Satan DOES NOT Want You To Know He Was Defeated
Colossians 2:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
We can see that Satan was defeated by what Jesus did on the cross. The blood of Jesus not only forgave our sins, it caused the defeat of Satan. The term spoiled is a military term when an army would take a city, they would take the wealth of the enemy and leave them with nothing of value. Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, etc. we can go on and on, but the conquering army would always walk away with the wealth of those that were conquered. Here is an informative verse of scripture that also helps us to see what Jesus has done:
1 Corinthians 2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
You see from this verse we can clearly see that Satan now has a major problem. Something that Jesus did, caused his status to change. Something that Jesus did in His death has doomed Satan and his followers and has set their destiny. Many Christians today have only seen a fraction of the things that Jesus accomplished on the cross. This is just another example of the fact that there are many things found in the Bible that we do not have the complete story on as of yet. We can make a broad conclusion, that based upon this verse that the death of Jesus Christ sealed Satan’s future.
So why if Satan was defeated, wasn’t he just thrown into the pit and that was the end of it? It is an interesting question, that most have never tried to answer. Satan has a right to be here as long as descendants of Adam have the right to be here. The world was given to Adam (Gen 1:26) and Adam gave it to Satan (Luke 4:5-6). So we in effect see a sub-lease being established. As long as Adam’s lease or time period is valid, Satan’s time period is valid. However, we also now know that this time period is now growing very short. If you have been reading my other Bible lesson you will already understand that the time period of human history was prophesied by God Genesis 1 to be approximately 6000 years. We can calculate that we are very, very close to the end of that time period right now. If you learned anything today, learn that Satan is a loser and if you are following him your time is very short to change your mind.
NUMBER 6
6. Satan DOES NOT Want You To Know That You Have Authority Over Him
Did you notice that earlier I quoted a scripture that said Satan was going about, seeking those who he could devour? Apparently he cannot come into your house and take everything from you unless you let him or permit him to do something to cause it to happen. If you could just find out what opens the door for the enemy to come in, I bet you would stop it. I don’t think I have a complete answer to that question, but I have seen at least part of the answer. We know sin, allows Satan access into our lives. Then in Hosea 4:6 it tells us that God’s people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. So in effect we can see that ignorance or not knowing the right things, can allow Satan access into our lives. What else opens the door to the enemy? I believe that not knowing that you have been given authority over Satan will also allow him to come into your life to attempt to work his evil works. Here is what Jesus told us:
Luke 10:19 Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
If you don’t understand Biblical symbolism you will immediately get the wrong idea that you should be able to walk in a viper pit and not get bitten. But that is not what Jesus was talking about in this statement. Jesus is talking about the symbolic “serpent” that deceived Eve and that was literally Satan. The symbolic scorpions in this verse refers to the demons or evil spirits that are under Satan’s power. Understanding these symbolic references are essential to understanding the Bible correctly. Not everything in the Bible is literal. This verse tells us that Jesus gave us power over these evil spiritual forces. This word for “power” actually means “authority” or “legal jurisdiction” over these powers. The term translated as “power” of the enemy is a completely different Greek word that means “miraculous ability”. You learn from this verse that Satan still has ability to do some amazing things in the earth, but Jesus said I give you my authority over what he can do to you. You might not be able to stop what he does to your neighbor, but you can certainly stop what he does to you and your family. This spiritual authority must be exercised by your choice either during the attack or before the attack takes place. How do you do that? Maybe I’ll get into that in another lesson. Thanks for taking the time to read and study the Bible to learn about our enemy Satan. Share this spiritual knowledge with the poeple that you know and continue to walk in your new found knowledge from God. God Bless you!
If you would like to continue reading in this series, please go to “Part 2“.
Jesus had a Problem with Religion
(Ver 1.2) Many try to classify Christianity as a religion, but it is not a religion, it is a relationship. You either know God or you don’t or more importantly God knows you or He doesn’t. In Luke 13:25, Jesus tells a story of those that are standing on the outside crying out “Lord, Lord”. Jesus tells them “Depart, I know ye not”. What a sad story of people who thought they did everything right but didn’t know God and more importantly weren’t known by God.
Reading and studying the Gospels, I found Jesus to be a loving and compassionate individual, to all but one group of people. So did God show favoritism by NOT treating these people the same as he did the common sinners. These people that Jesus constantly confronted in abrupt terms were the religious people of His day. These were the rulers of the Jews. These were those that thought of themselves as being better than everyone else. These are the people that thought they knew more than everyone else, including God who was standing before them. These were the keepers of the law of God, who added to the Word of God and made it of no affect due to their traditions and decrees. Jesus was not kind to these people and said some very blunt things to them. He called the children of Satan (John 8:44). He called them serpents, a generation of vipers (Mat 23:33). He said many things to them that can still be said to people even in the church today.
Religion has always been man’s attempt to please a God they do not know. Most of the time religion involves strict rules of thou shalt not do this and that. Many religions people punish themselves, do without things, even hurt themselves by beating their bodies with chains or other crazy things. All in an attempt to make themselves worthy of something that God has already given to them for free. But religious people go so far above and beyond that simple definition and description. There are religious people probably sitting next to in church. Full of themselves and how good they are. They are so much better than you and I. Try to teach them something new and they scream heretic, hearsay, garbage, junk. They close their minds, ears and eyes to the truth and are content with what they think they know. Happy to live in ignorance and remain ignorant. You probably noticed I take after Jesus, I confront religious people straight on, I’m not trying to please everybody with a watered-down teaching that just let’s everyone do as they please. Jesus wasn’t like that, and we shouldn’t be like that. Jesus would commune with sinners, eat with tax collectors and call religious people idiots. Ok, I admit idiots, was my interpretation of some of His strongest words. Love all of those that will open and let you into the doors of their hearts but confront those religious types of people who say that we are wrong in doing that.
Genesis 1:24-31 Day 6 God’s Delegated Authority
(Ver 1.1) There are so many things to learn in the Bible it is a challenge to figure out what do people already know, what do they need to know and what is important. So I plan on wrapping up my blog on Day 6 of creation with this last bit of information. When I worked for a small software company many years ago, I met a man there that had graduated from a seminary (which will remain nameless). He had some very strange ideas about the Bible and had been taught many things by people who obviously didn’t know God. There is a difference in knowing about God and knowing God. Well any way this man told me that in first chapter of Genesis when God said “Let them have dominion”, that didn’t mean they were in control of anything. In other words he read the scripture and immediately threw away the verse because it did not fit his theology. That of course is a huge problem. We should always make our theology and beliefs fit what we read and learn and not the other way. What does it mean to have dominion? Here is what Webster defines the word as:
Dominion: dominance or power through legal authority
Adam was given legal authority over the planet. That would make him the ruler of the earth, wouldn’t it? If you are brave you might have called Adam the “god” of this world”. God’s statement gave Adam dominion, and that implies a transfer of ownership. A legal status change or transfer from God to man. Legal authority is a right that is bestowed upon you, something that can only be transferred upon you by a higher authority. You can’t make your self a policeman, but if you sign up go through the training and are accepted you can be given the authority of a policeman by the local city government. A policeman has a transferred authority to carry out and enforce the law. Power and authority are sometimes used as synonymous terms. But really they are quite different, many strong men have the ability to exercise power over people to make them do what they want, but most do not have the authority backing them. When God created the world he turned over the authority to rule it to his creation.
Psalm 115:16 The heavens, even the heavens are the Lord’s: But the earth he hath given to the children of men.
This verse in Psalms tells us very clearly that the earth was given to the children of Adam. Do you recall in the Gospels when Jesus walked the earth he constantly referred to himself as “the son of man”. Jesus of course was a Hebrew and in the Hebrew he was saying I am a son of Adam. Remember man and Adam are the same Hebrew word. The Pharisee’s would ask him where do you get your authority to do these things? They recognized that he taught with authority, spoke with authority, cast out devils, healed the sick and did many other miraculous things. But Jesus never told them where he got this authority. I personally believe that God had given it to him when he created Adam.
So what is the huge controversy about this delegated authority of man? The main problem that the seminary graduate had was that it violated his idea of God’s sovereignty. If man was in control of the planet, that meant God was not. If man was responsible to work and keep the garden, then that means God was not. The implications are huge and it helps to explain a lot of things in the Bible when we see these things clearly. Why did Jesus have to come in the form of a man in order to redeem us? Why did the omnipotent God have to be birthed through a woman on this planet to do everything he needed to do to free us from sin, Satan, death and evil. There are so many things to think about and to consider. But, we first must start by reading the Bible finding out what God says happened and then attempt to understand how that affected us.
When I started this blog, one of my statements was probably very offensive to some. I called Adam the god of this world when he was created. It is funny how many things that are in the Bible that people ignore. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 God calls Satan the god of this world, how did he get this title? It had to be transferred to him from Adam. Remember when Jesus was tempted by the devil? Satan came to him and said “worship me and I’ll give you everything that you can see.” Satan told Jesus that it had all been given to him. So who gave it to him? It had to be Adam, because God had given it all to Adam. Only the owner has the right to transfer ownership. I can’t come up to your house and tell you that I am giving your house to someone else that wants it. If I don’t own your house I don’t have a right to tell you who lives in it. So many things to consider, isn’t there? So then what do Christians do with John the 10th Chapter when Jesus tells humanity, “Is it not written in your book of the law, I said you are gods.”. Most religious people and denominations stay very far away from that verse and never touch it. Act like it does not exist and we don’t have to address it. If we acknowledge that it’s there, then we have to come up with excuses of why it’s not true. Heaven help us all!
When Jesus was raised from the dead he makes a statement that blows you away. In Matthew 28:18 Jesus says this “All power is given to me, both in heaven and in earth.” What a radical statement, according to what many theologians teach, you would have thought that God already had all power in heaven and in earth. Apparently Not! Do you see the problem? Here we have another very direct statement that God (the highest authority) has delegated all authority to Jesus both in heaven and on the earth. How could God do that? It was because Jesus was a son of Adam and had the right to take back what his father Adam had given away. See right there so many religious people are going to scream and say I said Jesus’ father was Adam and not God. But I didn’t say that. Jesus was the Son of God, but He called Himself the son of Adam. Naturally born a child of Adam a man, but spiritually conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. The combination of God’s word and Mary’s egg, produced a man called Jesus Christ. A man who was 100% God and 100% man.
That concludes my short lesson on delgated authority. If you study the subject you will clearly see that God had the right to do whatever He desired with His creation and He clearly desired to create a man and give it all to him and his children. Jesus came to the earth to get back what Adam had given away to Satan and do other things that I have not touched on as of this point in my Bible lessons. Please continue to read and to learn what Jesus has done for us. God Bless!
Genesis 3:1 Was there a Talking Snake in the Garden?
(ver 2.6) This is “Part 1” in a series of advanced Bible lessons on the study of hidden spiritual subjects found in Genesis 3. In this lesson I am going to confront a popular misconception and misunderstanding found in the chapter. Was there a literal talking natural snake in the Garden of Eden? Did a naturally created snake approach, walk up to, or slither up to Adam and Eve and start a conversation with them to deceive them? I’m sure most of you have seen the paintings of the temptation, the naked man and woman holding an apple with the snake creature nearby. We’ve all heard this story taught this way in Sunday School as a child. However, is this what the Bible really says? Must we take every scripture, verse and word literally in the Bible? What if God intended the verse to hide a greater spiritual meaning? If so, then how would we know when to take something inspired by the most intelligent Spirit literally in the Bible and when to view it as only a symbolic reference, a figurative expression or even as a figure of speech? Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. There are literal statements and stories in the Bible. The Genesis 3:1 account is a very true and real story of what actually happened during the fall of man. We just need to begin to understand what was actually given to us to read.
Too many Christians want to take everything written by God completely and totally as if the Bible was written in a school text book style with every truth obviously presented in a straightforward and plain ordered bullet point or numbered manner. But the problem is that the Bible is not a textbook and it contains many, many hidden mysteries, puzzles and concealed truths that are not self-evident on a surface only reading of the text. You can also find there are truths written on the same subject anywhere in the Bible from front to back, cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation. The Holy Bible is written in a multitude of literary styles by around 40 different men that were given the words by God to write for us to read, study and learn from. God purposely hid many of these truths, not from us, but for us to find (Prov 25:2). So here is the divine challenge, how does God encode secrets for someone to find without using a standard encryption system that makes the text totally useless? The government encrypts information to keep it out of the hands of other enemy governments. Web sites encrypt credit card and customer information to keep it out of the hands of hackers and criminals. What we can learn from this principle is that God obviously had an enemy that was trying to steal information and use it against us. Therefore, I believe based upon scripture that God has encoded within the natural text message a spiritual message within so that He could reveal it by His Spirit in us His people at the appropriate time, which I believe is now. I call this technique, God hiding the truth in plain sight.
THE CREATED SET CALLED BEASTS OF THE FIELD!
So the question remains was there a literal physical talking snake in the garden of Eden? I’ll have to tell you right now that there is absolutely no way based upon rightly understanding scriptures that I have found in the Bible that there was a physical talking snake in the garden. You can clearly see where I stand upon this issue so let’s find out why I am a firm believer in this. Here is what the beginning of Genesis 3:1 says to us, read it very carefully and then I’ll explain it.
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
I am only going to be focusing on the first phrase of the verse in this Bible lesson. But I did give the entire verse to help avoid criticism from those that would like to criticize and find fault. Let’s begin by doing some close analysis of the exact wording or phrasing of this initial statement “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made”. You should be able to understand from reading the entire verse that the primary subject of the verse is a “serpent”. This Hebrew word is H5175 and does mean “a snake” in the literal definition and this is why people begin to believe that God is speaking of a literal talking snake in Genesis 3. This Hebrew word being translated as “serpent” is used 31 times in the Old Testament and is found in 28 verses with 5 references being found within 5 verses of Genesis 3. But let’s change the perspective in order to see the characteristics of this “serpent” being described by God and maybe this new knowledge will begin to change how we think.
Now observe that this “serpent” is stated to be more subtle than “any beast” of the field that the Lord God had created. I want to focus upon the Hebrew word H6175 which is translated as “subtle” in Genesis 3:1. The Hebrew word translated as subtle means “cunning” in an evil, negative or bad manner. The ESV and NASB versions of the Bible translated this word as “crafty”. The CEV Bible translated it as “sneaky”. The Young’s Literal Bible translate it as “subtile”. This Hebrew word is clearly represents an evil connotation being applied to this class of being labeled or named as the “serpent”. Right there that should raise some red flags in our minds to teach us something that is very important. How did God create every beast (living) animal on this planet? Didn’t God create the beast of the field and say that they were all “good” in Genesis 1:25 and “very good” in Genesis 1:31? Good is not evil and very good is definitely not anything that is bad. There were no evil connotations placed upon any of the created beings found in Genesis 1, so that is something brand new for us to consider and learn from. It would contradict with Genesis 1 if this was a created literal snake in the Garden of Eden. I hope and pray that you can see that but we also need to learn what else this verse is saying or should I say is not saying.
This is what the Holy Spirit said to me when I studied the verse and it changed my entire perspective dramatically when I saw it and fully understood it. I read this verse and suddenly the still small voice of the Holy Spirit asked me this question, “Did you notice that didn’t say ‘other‘?”. Almost immediately I knew what He was asking me because of divine revelation. When I studied Geometry in High School, I remember a part of the class dealt with the subject of mathematical “sets” and “set theory”. 
Do you understand what a “set” is? A set is a grouping of related items. Let me give you a more complete definition of a set. A set is “a well defined collection of distinct objects. The objects that make up a set (also known as the elements or members of a set) can be anything: numbers, people, letters of the alphabet, other sets, and so on.” Within mathematical sets you can also have subsets. Then you can have multiple sets with some common or overlapping members that are in more than one set. For example, a set could be Animals, under that set could be a subset of mammals, under that set could be a subset of birds, fish, land animals and on and on. Each set or subset is a grouping of related items. In other words every member of the set has the same characteristics and can be easily identified as belonging to the group. So why did I just spend so much time going through all of that math explanation and set theory overview? Do you see it? Was the primary noun serpent of this sentence a created beast of the field that the Lord God declared a member of the set of created beings of the field defined by God to be very good? I’d like to ask you a question and I want you to consider it with great thought. What would change if God would have added the word “other” to the verse? Read this modified verse with the word other added and observe what changes:
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any ‘OTHER’ beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
Now do you see it? What comprises the set “beasts of the field”? What are the members of that set? Beasts of the field would be the superset of all created animals, birds, reptiles, etc. Isn’t a natural and physical snake one of those beasts of the field that the Lord God has made? So what happens when you take out the word “other” like the verse really says. The logical conclusion has to be that the serpent was not a member of that category of the made or created creatures of the field. Let me teach it to you like this, if the adjective “any” is placed before the noun “Beasts” we have to conclude that there are no beasts omitted from this grouping. The Hebrew term (H3605) translated as the English word”Any” is an “all inclusive” statement that omits none of them. The Hebrew word translated as “Any” literally means “All” or “EVERY”. By God NOT putting the word “Other” after the word “any” we know concretely that the referenced “serpent” in the beginning of the statement was not a member of that set of created living creatures. In other words, there was no physical literal created talking snake based just upon the correct reading, understanding and interpretation of this verse. I hope and pray that you understand basic logic and math laws and how they apply to the correct interpretation of the Word of God. God is a highly intelligent being and has designed and implemented the Bible using Laws that we must follow in order to correctly understand what is written.
NATURAL OR SUPERNATURAL TEMPTATION?
So let’s find some other scriptures that help us to confirm what God has just taught you by the omission of the word “other”. Here is one verse that I know most don’t immediately associate with Genesis, but it is related even though you’ve never seen it or applied it to what we have just read in Genesis 3:1.
1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation overtaken you but such as is common to man:
What is God’s primary subject that is occurring in the beginning of Genesis 3? What is the initial theme of Genesis 3? Some say that Genesis 3 is about the fall of Man, but what happened before that. Before the fall there was a state of everything being created good without sin on the earth. Then Satan appears and does what? Of course we are talking about the “temptation” of Adam and Eve by the serpent or Satan, right? So what did God just teach us about the subject of human “temptation” in 1 Corinthians? This is another law or principle of correct Bible interpretation, the Bible always interprets itself. So you must go and search the Bible for related scriptures that help to explain what is written in the Old Testament.
In 1 Corinthians God says every time we (humans) are tempted by the enemy (Satan) it is a common human occurrence. The Greek word that was translated as “common to man” is G442 and it means “after the manner of men”. In other words any satanic temptation is one that is a natural temptation, meaning it is NOT a supernatural temptation. Did you realize that according to what God has just written in His word that it is illegal for Satan to tempt you supernaturally? What is a supernatural temptation? That would be any temptation that did not occur naturally by created design or created laws or any temptation of a non-created material substance or nature. Have you ever seen a talking snake? If you can find me one I would love to see it and this would provide the evidence to support a literal talking snake in the garden being the tempter. Seeing talking snakes in the past and today would make this type of temptation a common occurrence for man. However, I’ve been to many zoos and if there were any talking snakes, I didn’t see them. No you see a talking snake would be a supernatural temptation, a non-common human temptation occurrence and that would cause God’s word in 1 Corinthians 10:13 to become a lie. Since God does not lie I have to conclude there was still no literal talking snake in the garden.
We can therefore reason with great confidence that a talking snake being a tempter would be an illegal supernatural act and if Satan can’t tempt you this way, then he can’t tempt Eve that way either. This scripture is an example of a universal truth. In other words this scripture applies across the board to every person in the human race at any given time within human history. There are some scriptures that only apply to the natural nation of Israel; there are some scriptures that only apply to men; there are some that written to only women; there are some that are written only to the church and others that are written to other groups or sets of people. However, there are also those scriptures like this one that will apply to everyone equally. This is a verse that is in the Universal set of Truth. These represent spiritual laws and God enforces these. The Bible says God watches over His words to perform them and this would be an example.
HOW DOES SATAN TEMPT SOMEONE TODAY?
Have you ever been tempted by Satan? Sure you have whether you admit it or not. How did he come to you and try to tempt you? Did Satan have to manifest himself in the body of an animal to tempt you? Of course he didn’t. Satan when he comes he speaks in your mind, by using your thought life to tempt you to do something that you shouldn’t, or to say something you that you shouldn’t, or whatever. If Satan tempted you this way, then he tempted Eve this way also. Do you think we can find any scripture to confirm this? Of course we can if we look:
2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty , so your minds be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
It is amazing what the Bible says when you look for it, understand it and apply it to Genesis 3 interpretation correctly. You see this verse is written to the church and it said Eve was deceived by the serpent, because of his trickery. But did you notice how he did it? This temptation occurred in Eve’s mind and it was not carried out by a talking supernatural snake in the garden. How can we further confirm this? Ask yourself was there ever any mention in Genesis 3 of Adam hearing the snakes voice? If you read closely you will observe that God rebukes Adam for hearkening to the voice of his wife and never mentions the voice of the serpent to Adam. Was not Adam standing next to Eve in the garden? If there was a literal talking snake present then there would have been an audible voice for Adam to also hear. I really believe that Bible need to learn to read and see what is there and what is not there and quit adding tot he words to make them say something that they do not say. We have just learned from God’s commentary on the story of Genesis 3 that whatever Satan said to Eve was a thought in her mind and this caused her to be deceived. Satan is still the same subtle deceiver today and he works and operates in the exact same way that he has always worked. He tries to deceive you through the same avenues of your mind. This verse clearly warns the church to watch their thoughts in order to keep Satan from corrupting their minds. That is why we are instructed in the Bible in this way:
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imagination and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
Apparently our minds are still the battle ground for the attacks of the enemy and we are responsible to police this mental realm and exercise our authority to keep the enemy out of there. Because preachers and teachers believe that Satan had to borrow the body of a physical snake in order to manifest himself in the earth, they think this is the only way he can communicate to you. We have clearly seen that this is not the case using the Bible. Eve was clearly deceived in her mind; you can also be deceived in your mind if you let him operate there. God tells us what to think on in the Bible, perhaps you should go and search for them and learn to keep only those things in your mind.
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF SATAN ENTERED AN ANIMAL’S BODY?
I think now would be a good time to introduce you to another set of scriptures that is certainly related to our subject study. If Satan had to borrow the body of a literal physical snake in order to manifest himself to Adam and Eve, what would happen if he actually did this? According to the Bible it is not a positive outcome for the natural snake. You can see in the Gospel where Jesus when He walked the face of the earth and came across a man who was possessed of devils in Matthew 8. The devils started to talk to Jesus and asked Jesus if they could go into the bodies of the herd of swine that were nearby. Jesus said Go! The devils went out of the men and went into the nearby natural animals. Then what happened to the animals?
Mat 8:32 And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.
Apparently animals are aware when evil spirits enter into them. Did you see this? The animals were driven mad and committed suicide. After the suicide the evil spirits had no living bodies to possess, so they went about looking for another human to deceive. Did you learn anything from this story? Did you see how it applies to Genesis 3:1? Yes it is confirmed that a spirit being can enter into a body of even a snake but we must conclude from what was just presented that the snake would not have been a willing participant to the possession. God gives us clues like this in the Bible and we are required to put the clues together in order to understand what is being said. What we have learned is that even animals have a sensitivity to spiritual beings. Sometimes I think that animals are more sensitive than many people about pending disasters. Cats and dogs can sense earthquakes before they happen. Animals around the coast line ran to higher ground before the tsunami killed so many people a few years ago. Do not assume or think that any animal will just allow a devil to come into them and use them without them knowing about it. This is just another reason I do not believe there was a physical talking snake in the garden.
IS THE SERPENT LITERAL OR SYMBOLIC?
Now there is a major problem being presented for those who want to take every scripture literally. You see the problem is that the serpent must be a purely symbolic reference for a spiritual being that was not directly named or identified in the book of Genesis at all. You see I have been talking like you already knew that they serpent was Satan throughout this Bible study, but I have offered no Biblical proof to confirm this fact. How do we know that the “serpent” was Satan and not a literal talking created snake? I state the serpent was Satan based upon where else the serpent is mentioned in scriptures. God gives us the definition of the serpent in the last book of the Bible. You do understand that God is the author of the entire Bible, don’t you? You do understand that God can give new information for the same subject found in Genesis wherever He desires to, don’t you? You see God uses a symbolic serpent to describe Satan in several places in the Bible but I will only give you two verses that identifies the serpents real name to us very clearly:
Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, the 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.
Rev 20:2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
We can see from these verses in Revelation the true identity of the symbolic “old serpent” is revealed to us to be Satan, the deceiver. These verses also contain another symbolic reference and calls Satan the “great dragon”. Apparently Satan’s strength and ability has increased substantially as the symbolic dragon at the end to a level greater than he possessed at the beginning as the symbolic serpent. You can clearly see why God selected to use symbolic references in both places of the Bible. By comparing these two symbolic references we can gain additional information about this unseen spiritual enemy named Satan. What I am doing is attempting to teach you that God reveals the true identity of the symbolic “serpent” found in Genesis 3:1. You can see two times in Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20:2 that the “serpent” is a symbolic reference for the devil called Satan. If the “serpent” is not literal here in these verses there is NO legitimate way for the “serpent” to be literal in Genesis either. So we just learned a valuable lesson, of why we can’t take everything in the Bible literally. We have also learned that we can’t study any book of the Bible independently in a vacuum. We must always use the Bible to interpret the Bible! We must see what God’s says about the subject we are studying in the Old Testament in the other places of the New Testament, because He always provides additional information, explanations and definitions that are critical for us to see in order to correctly understand what was being taught.
I have just given you at least 4 good reasons why the Bible says there was no literal physical talking snake in Genesis 3:1. These are not all of the reasons that I could have presented but there were enough reasons why I can say with great confidence that there was no physical talking snake in the Garden of Eden! I thank you for you time and comments. Be blessed in the Lord and continue in the pursuit of the knowledge of His Word. Until the next lesson please tell your friends about what you have learned from God.
If you would like to continue to read Genesis 3 “Part 2 – Does Eating Fruit Kill You” please click.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 5
(Ver 1.1) After I learned this information that I have been attemting to teach to you, it changed my perspective on much of the Bible. I started to understand a lot more of the parts that use to be very hard to follow. I hope that you too are beginning to see some glimpses of the light of how the scriptures harmonize and fit together. We have been discussing the two different realms or spiritual states of the human heart. Those who are in darkness and those who are in the light. We have seen that Jesus Christ represents the sun and we are beginning to understand how the word of God causes Christ to arise and shine into our hearts. I think it is a good time to talk about the identity of the moon.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
I once heard a minister say that the church is the moon (lesser light). That we are the one’s that live now in this dark world and we are to rule over it. Of course on the surface I understood what he was trying to say but he got it all very wrong. We are certainly in the world, but we are not of this world. In fact if you look at scripture it says we are seated with Christ in heavenly places (Eph 2:6). No, just think about all of the the known moon’s characteristics. The moon is a lifeless chunk of rock that has no ability to do anything. The light it shines at night does not originate from itself, no it is simply a reflection of the light from the sun. Some would say that fits the church, we don’t have any ability within our self but we depend upon Christ who gives us the ability to do whatever. Of course that is true, but let’s take the analogy deeper. The moon is lit in the sky in different phases. The moon goes from completely lit to completely dark. How does that fit the church? Are you saying God shines on us sometimes and sometimes He doesn’t? Or are you saying man hides from God so that God cannot shine on him? Either one doesn’t really make any sense to me. The moon is also only lit on one side. There is a dark side of the moon that we don’t see. Is this descriptive of the church? Does the church only show the world the part they want to see and hides the part they don’t want people to see in the darkness. That shouldn’t fit a true Christian in the church either. These are major problems to the moon being the church from my view point.
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
We know from reading Genesis 1:18 that the sun rules the day and the moon rules the night. We could also say that the moon rules the darkness. Night and darkness are synonymous terms. Here is a scripture that should help to clear up the confusion of is the moon the church. Let’s look at a verse in Ephesians 6:12:
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Did you see what that this verse says? Who is this verse talking about? It is speaking of Satan and his demonic forces. These are the spiritual forces that are our enemies and as this verse states, they rule the darkness, not the church. In fact the Bible tells the church that we are not of the darkness (John 12:46), it also says what association has light with darkness (1 Th 5:5), meaning there should be none. You are welcome to study this subject in more depth, because I did not attempt to give you every scripture that there is on the subject. My goal is to point you in the right direction and help you learn. God Bless you and I hope you enjoyed Day 4. I’m sure I didn’t cover everything, but I hope I helped you to see some new things in the Word of God.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 4
We have been exploring the revelation of night and day, light and darkness and have discovered that these are symbolic elements that represent the state of the heart’s of men. We have explored the fact that God created a division between two different distinct groups of people which Jesus Christ implemented with His death and resurrection. One group is those who belong to Christ and are said to be the children of the light and the day. Those who don’t belong to Christ are those who walk in darkness live in the night. Let’s look at another verse that confirms this:
Romans 2:19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
According to this scripture God writes to the church and declares them to be a guiding light to the blind, those who are in darkness. Right there we know that we the church are not in the darkness, but yet we are the one’s which can shine the light for those who are unable to see spiritually. What is blindness? It is the inability to see light. How is it that some people can see and understand the Bible and many others can’t? Here is the answer to that question:
2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
This verse of scripture contains so much revelation that it is difficult to stick to the point at hand. However, it declares that the “god of this world” has blinded those who are in darkness. Let’s stop right there and determine who is the “god of this world”? Most of you should already understand that this is Satan, the dragon, the serpent, the devil, the deceiver, the thief, the accuser of the brethren, the adversary, the father of lies, Beelzebub, Lucifer and I could go on and on. This enemy of God and the church goes by a bunch of identities and names in the Bible but they all direct us to one spirit being called Satan. The verse in 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us that there are those who are in spiritual darkness because of this enemy that has caused them not to believe. It in effect says that Satan is blocking the light from shining in so that they are not able to see spiritually. It also confirms that Jesus Christ is the light or the Sun that is trying to shine in on the hearts of those men in the darkness.
I hope you are grasping the powerful symbolism that Genesis is providing us. What we are beginning to see is two different rulers, two different gods, one god of this world and one God our Lord Jesus Christ. Two different kingdoms, one of light and one of darkness. Two groups of people those who live in the night who are unable to see and those who walk in the light and can see where they are going. It is a profound symbolic representation of the spiritual state of two completely different groups of people. We will continue more in the next lesson and hopefully finish up day 4.
Correct Bible Interpretation Rules Part 4 — Introduction to Symbolism in the Bible!
(Ver 2.2) This is Part 4 in the series of Bible lessons on Correct Bible Interpretation Rules. If you have not read this series from the beginning it would be advised that you go back and start reading at “Part 1” first and continue forward through the series. Getting a firm grasp on God’s usage of symbolism is very critical to correctly understanding and interpreting the Bible. Many times we read the Bible and see the mention of something that can be taken either literally or symbolically and this makes correct Bible interpretation infinitely more complex. The Bible is full of symbolism from the very 1st chapter of Genesis to the very last chapter in Revelation. We will eventually discuss why God uses symbolism but for now let’s attempt to define what it is. I like to view symbolism as a method used by God to convey hidden spiritual information in a coded format or reference. Symbolic Bible reference almost always describe concealed and hidden spiritual things using the terms, descriptions, names or titles of natural things, events or people that we all should be familiar with or at the least should be able to look at them and then learn to understand them with study. For example, have you ever seen God? No, God is a hidden spiritual being and the Bible says no man has ever seen God, but yet for you to get to know who God is, He describes Himself in the terms of natural things like the Sun so that we can understand Him and learn about His hidden qualities.
If while you are reading the Bible you encounter a reference to something or someone that doesn’t make a lot of sense to be a real physical entity it would be a good time to ask is this a symbolic reference to a higher spiritual truth. Let me give you an example in Genesis 3, the Bible speaks of a creature called the serpent in Genesis 3:1. Most Bible scholars agree that this is Satan, but the controversy comes when they attempt to say that Satan appeared in the garden of Eden as a physical snake. If you ever attended Sunday School as a child you have seen the picture of a naked man and woman in the garden with an apple in their hand and a talking snake near them tempting them. I guess this is the picture that these verses in Genesis 3 have conjoured up within the minds of men and women who have read the story. I could give you several scriptures in the Bible that directly contradict this account that helps us to see the real meaning behind this symbol, but I guess because of the time it would take to do that, I won’t go into that level of detail until we get to those verses in Genesis 3 later. What I will say is that this serpent in Genesis 3 is a symbolic reference and not an actual literal physical talking snake and you will have to wait for why I know this until later.
Please realize that the first three chapters of Genesis are heavily covered with symbolic references and not literal references. God is attempting to teach you about spiritual things and not about natural things and this is the failure that many Bible students fall into by simply ignoring which references are natural and which ones are just symbolic of a much greater spiritual reality. The book of Daniel has many symbolic references throughout the book. The beasts seen in the visions, are all symbolic of earthly empires and spiritual beings behind them. The book of Revelation is literally the most symbolic book that I know of. There are very literally few things in the book of Revelation that are mentioned that are not symbolic of something that is spiritual. You can find Daniel’s beasts repeated in Revelation, you can find the serpent from Genesis 3 repeated and finally being revealed to who this was in Revelation 12. There are two major symbolic women in Revelation, one in Revelation 12 and the other in Revelation 17 called the Whore of Babylon. There is another symbolic city called a woman in Revelation 21 named the New Jerusalem and the bride of the Lamb.
I hope that you understand symbolism and can learn to identify God’s usage of this technique. God Bless!
A Deceived Christian Example to Avoid Part 1 – Calling Good as Evil and Evil as Good
(Ver 1.2) Today is Part 1 in a Bible study series focused upon how Satan can even deceive people who say they are Christians. Jesus speaking to the disciples in Matthew 24:4 warned them “take heed that no man deceive you”. There are preachers today that believe true and real saved Christians cannot be deceived to fall or turn away from Jesus. It is unfortunate that Jesus did not understand this belief or he would not have warned us that we could be deceived. This Bible study series will focus upon how we can find examples of deception taking place in the world today within the lives of people that say they are Christians. So let us get started with the first example.
I really do not enjoy criticizing other Christians and I plan to never name their names. I realize there are no perfect people in the world including me. But occasionally someone just stands out above the rest as the most incredibly deceived person that calls themselves a Christian that I’ve ever heard of. Yesterday while watching the evening news a story came across the network about a pastor who was going to battle Satan by holding a book burning on Halloween. At first glance this probably does not sound like a bad idea to many Christians, but I was floored when the news anchor started naming the list of materials that he was planning on burning. At first I thought the preacher was going to share about burning Heavy Metal songs, Punk, Rap lyrics, Cult Materials, Porn or other types of similar literature. However, the shocker came when they interviewed the preacher and he said he was going to burn Bibles. Obviously this is what got him on a major news network for public TV consumption. I really thought this man was joking at first. But I gathered from hearing this plan of this preacher that it was true and that he was dead serious on carrying it out.
According to this preacher and I use that term very loosely, only the King James version of the Bible was divinely inspired and came from God and all of the other versions of the Bible were works of Satan. I really don’t understand how dumb or blinded someone can become and still be called a Christian. How did this man arrive at such a foolish opinion. What would cause someone to think any Bible could not be used by God. That seems to be putting God in a box of severe limitation.
You know what I have discovered about people? It seems that the people who know the least amount of truth are many times the most vocal and opinionated against God. It sounds to be that this preacher has his head buried so deep that he doesn’t recognize the difference between good and evil. The Bible actually warns us in Isaiah 5:20 “Woe unto them that call evil good and good, evil”. To burn any translations of the Bible and call it the works of Satan is an incredibly deceived action.
Satan is not in the business of helping people to read and understand the Bible. If Satan had his way there would be absolutely no Bibles available to anyone and obviously he has convinced at least one preacher to help him get rid of them. How many of you realize that there are no perfect translations of the Bible available in print? Did you know that every translation of the Bible has some slanted perspective and/or opinion of the translator mixed with it? The King James Bible while it is the one that I use predominately, I have found many problems with the translation. Obviously by me making that statement of truth, I just got on someone’s heretic and false teacher list. But we must all know that only the original Hebrew and Greek text contains the inspired (God Breathed) words from God’s mouth without errors. We should all just learn Hebrew and Greek and fix this problem shouldn’t we? I guess not, what we should do is just study to show our self approved a workmen unto God who rightly divides the word of truth (2 Tim 2:15).
My guess is this man is also one of those preachers who claims “tongues” is of the devil. It is sad how Christian people have been so easily deceived into believing such untrue things. I’ve watched movies, I’ve seen fights, I’ve seen people in bars drunk, I’ve witnessed acts of violence and terror and not one time have any of these people in any of these places or acts have I ever seen standing up speaking in tongues with their hands raised in praise. I have also never seen or heard of anyone in a bar reading the NIV, NASB, NKJV, or other Bible while they were getting drunk. Isn’t that just a little bit troubling to you?
Every decent Bible translation can be used by the Holy Spirit to reach someone to get them saved. The Holy Spirit is NOT limited to reaching only people who can speak “King James English” of “thee”, “thou”, “thus”, “saith”, etc. When someone first becomes a Christian it is good to get a translation of the Bible that is on their level. Easy to read English words are much more easy to understand than the KJV Bible. Later as the Christian becomes more mature and spiritually aware, other Bible translations of literal translation can be used by God also to help that individual learn.
So here was an example of one deceived man, a preacher who calls a good book called the Bible as an evil work of Satan and obviously doesn’t know the difference.. Let us not take the same bait of Satan to fall into the same trap of deception. Let us avoid following this man as our example. Please join me in praying for this man. Let us pray that God will bless this man with a spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing Christ Jesus, Amen.
A PERSONAL APPLICATION
LORD, I pray that you will help me to not be deceived. Lead me far away from anyone that is not proclaiming what you said in your Word and are saying today by your Holy Spirit. Help me to turn from following anyone that is not being led by your Spirit. Open my spiritual eyes to be able to understand your Word as I read and hear it and to discern between right and wrong, truth and lies, and good and evil. Thank LORD for your presence in me and your faithfulness to me in Jesus Name, I pray. Amen.
If you would like to continue reading in this series, please click “Part 2“.
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