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Understanding Hard Sayings in the Bible! Jacob Have I Loved and Esau Have I Hated! Part 6
(Ver 1.2) This is now “Part 6.1” in the series of very advanced Bible lessons on “Understanding Hard Sayings” found in the Bible. Today’s lesson is technically Part 1 of a 2 part lesson on the subject part 6 of Hard Sayings. This is also the beginning of an independent lesson in the series, meaning you do not have to read all of the other lessons to understand what I will discuss today in this lesson. But, of course this does not mean that you will automatically understand all of the complex subjects being covered in this lesson either. If you are interested in studying any of the other “Hard Sayings” that I have covered in the Bible you may want to start your reading with the first lesson in the series called “Part 1”. What is a hard saying? The Bible contains many statements that I labeled “Hard Sayings”. I was not the inventor of this name for these types of scriptures. The disciples actually coined the phrase “Hard Saying” in the Gospel of John 6:60 and I just took it from what they said to Jesus. Hard Sayings are any words of declaration that when taken literally as they were spoken or written are very difficult for us to accept because they appears to conflict with many other verses that we also know to be true. This is what the disciples struggled with when they heard Jesus speaking about drinking His blood and eating His flesh. These words that they heard, they knew had to be the truth, but they also knew that they caused them great difficulty because they did not first fully understand what they meant and they knew that they directly conflicted with many verses found in the Old Testament that taught them not to eat flesh with the blood still in it. That is exactly the same problem that many people in the world today still face. They still see the verses but do not understand what they mean and thus they stumble over them and do not know how to resolve the conflicts. The root cause of the problem occurs when men think carnally or naturally and God is usually speaking of spiritual things. There are so many of these types of hard saying verses found in the Bible.
Introduction to Today’s Bible Hard Saying
I am going to talk about another VERY hard saying found in the New Testament. I will warn you up front that this lesson will get into some very deep and new subjects that may be over your head right now. Therefore, please make sure that you are a spiritually strong swimmer before you jump into the really deep waters found in this Bible lesson. This lesson is an attempt to answer a very tough question that I got from someone on Facebook. I have spent a lot of time in writing the response to this question and I discovered that it was so long that I needed to split it into two lessons. So today I acknowledge my God and I am using my faith to answer another hard saying found in the Bible. In the book of Romans God declares something that is extremely difficult for us to comprehend and this statement from God potentially conflicts with many of the other scriptures that most Christians should already know and believe. Here is the basic hard saying that we will be dealing with today that comes from the mouth of God:
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Let’s briefly talk about the framework of this verse in order to understand where it was written and to who it was written to insure that we are not studying the verse in isolation or taking it out of context. We should first realize that this book of Romans was written directly to us in the church. These are words inspired by God and written down by Paul for ONLY us in the church who are believers. In other words these verses were not written to anyone outside of the church. Do you understand that? Therefore everything that was written in this book must either have some application to us or be useful for us to learn something that we need to know. In this ninth chapter there are literally several very hard sayings to understand and I am only to concentrate on this one in verse 13. These verses in chapter 9 of Romans are almost entirely spiritual concepts that are easily taken the wrong way or misapplied to speak of things that that they do not apply to. This chapter of Romans speaks several times about the natural nation of Israel. These natural people are called the children of the flesh in verse 8 and God clearly says that they are not my children and many Christians ignore these types of verses because they do not wish to see them. However, the Apostle Paul begins the chapter with an important statement that sets the tone for the rest of the chapter about his great heaviness of heart and great sorrow for the natural nation of Israel in verse 2. Paul the writer wished that he could do something to save them all. Therefore understand what is happening in the context of verse 13. There are two groups of people being spoken of, one is the church and one is the natural people of Israel. One group is saved and one group is not.
There are at the least 4 O.T. direct quotes in this chapter. One is the prophet Hosea saying “those that were not my people have become my people” in verse 25. Then from the prophet Isaiah God quotes “Though the number of the natural people of Israel have been as the sands of the sea, only a remnant will be saved” in verse 27. Then in verse 15 the prophet Moses is quoted “God will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy”. Finally in the verse 13 God quotes the prophet Malachi about “Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated”. I personally believe that all of these verses are connected together for us to see and to learn something new. I can see in this chapter that God is bringing in certain information from 4 different prophets written in the Old Testament linking them together into a new clearer perspective while shedding fresh light upon our relationship to God in the New Covenant. I also believe that one of the main themes found within this chapter of Romans is a division between those that are saved and those that are not saved. A division occurs when one person is separated from another. You could view it like a divorce from the natural marriage perspective where those that were once one, have now split to become two separate individuals. I see the emphasis of this chapter to be between two different opposing groups, those that are saved and those that are not saved. I really do not have time to teach you that part of the subject fully, but that is how I view what I read in the chapter and I believe that this information will eventually help us to understand the meaning of the reason why God says that He hates a man named Esau who died approximately 4000 years ago.
What Are the Bible Conflicts With Romans 9:13?
What are the controversies and scriptural conflicts found within this single reportedly simple verse in Romans 9:13? When I read this I knew immediately that this verse disagreed with the revealed nature and the character of God demonstrated to us by the physical appearing of God in the flesh in Jesus. In John 14:9 Jesus told Phillip “When you have seen me you have seen the Father”. Jesus claimed to be the previously hidden Father God now revealed to man for the first time. Therefore show me any verse in the Gospels that reveals Jesus to be a hater of any man living or dead. I looked and I could not find one, therefore this information of the revealed God in the Gospels directly conflicts with this information stated in Romans 9:13. Romans 9:13 also seems to imply that our God is a potential Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of God. A shifting God of either love or hate depending on something not revealed in this verse. Is God theoretically good to one man while being inconsistently evil to another man? I do not believe that He is. How can a God who loved me, died for me and saved me also be a God that hates me? I do not believe that He can. You might try to say “I’m not Esau” and therefore God does not hate me. But, that is the beginning of another conflicting problem to think that you are any better than Esau who was also a mere man, a lost unsaved son of Adam. The Bible says “ALL have sinned and come short of the GLORY of GOD”! (Rom 3:23) Then again in Romans 5:12 God repeats “ALL have sinned”. “ALL” is an inclusive statement that excludes no one (me, you, Jacob or Esau). That means you and I are sinners also. We are each guilty of sin if we are judged upon our own personal state of righteousness. Therefore according to Romans 3:23 and 5:13, there is no difference between me as a man before I was saved as to what Esau was in the book of Genesis. If you think you were better than Esau then you are deceived. Notice what Paul wrote to Timothy:
1Ti 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
As you can see Paul did not consider himself better than Esau and he was the one that wrote God hates Esau in Romans. Paul calls himself a chief among all sinners. That means that he thought that he was no better than any other man. Paul had the correct perspective and view of himself and many Christians today would benefit if they would learn the example that Paul set as the humble standard. Whenever a man or a woman believes themselves to be better than anyone else, it is a root of pride and self-righteousness. Therefore we have another conflict brewing that there is no stated difference between someone like me or a Paul, a Jacob or even an Esau in the natural realm of view. We are just all sinners by God’s high standards.
What other scriptural conflicts arise from this verse in Romans 9:13? The Bible declares in 1 John 4:16 that “God is Love”. How then could a God that is Love also hate? I believe that reveals a new problem. Then we read in John 3:16 “that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son” to save us. So how can a loving God simultaneously hate someone still to this day after coming to die for them to save them? Is not love the opposite of hate and vice versa? John 3:16 did NOT say that “God so hated the world that He gave Jesus”. Didn’t Jesus come into the world in His great love to die for every man? Did this world declaration in John 3:16, not also include the natural man Esau? Did Jesus die to save Esau? I believe that Esau was a part of the exact same world that you and I were a part of. Therefore, John 3:16 directly conflicts with the statement that God hates the natural man named Esau of this world. Doesn’t God say in 1 Corinthians 15:22 “that in Christ ALL are made alive”? Isn’t Esau a man forgiven by the shed blood of God the same as Jacob? Did the shed blood of Jesus not include the sins of Esau? I believe that these are major theological problems that we have encountered with the statement that God hates Esau. Here is another interesting perspective on the subject of if God hates Esau:
1Jn 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
Let me explain again about who Jesus was. I already told you that Jesus when born into the world was God in the flesh. However it is much more complicated than that. Jesus Christ was the only man that was ever born the Son of God and the Son of Man simultaneously. In other words God joined His Word and His Spirit to the physical egg of a woman on the earth and the these two together became the body of the man Jesus Christ with the Spirit of God on the inside of Him. God the creator in heaven literally came down to the earth and became an intimate part of His creation. The Bible says in John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” and then in verse 1 it says God is the Word. So Jesus was God made a man and if He ever hated anyone I can’t find it. Then there is a deeper problem revealed here in 1 John 3:15 when the Bible says if any man hates his brother, then He has no life everlasting in Him. Since Jesus was raised from the dead and is eternally alive now we know that it is impossible for Him to hate any of His natural brothers. Uh oh? What I am trying to say is that Jesus was a natural brother of Esau because they were both direct descendants of Adam. If a human hates another human on the earth they in effect hate their own brother. People do not see it this way because they did not share the same exact mothers, they think, but that is not true at all. All people on the earth originated from the woman Eve and the man Adam so there is no one on the earth other than a human from this one family. Do you see the problem that I am teaching you? There is also another very deep and complex reality found in the Bible that directly applies to Jesus and to you and me. Read these next two verses very carefully:
Heb 7:9 And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.
Heb 7:10 For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.
God says Levi paid tithes because He was in his father Abraham when Abraham paid the titles. Levi was not a direct son of Abraham. Abraham had a son Isaac and Isaac had a son Jacob and Jacob had a son Levi. Do you understand the far reaching concepts that these verses reveal? God says anything that your father did, you did because you were in your father. Therefore Jesus and Esau were both in their father Adam and therefore Jesus was a direct brother to Esau. What we see are some natural things that teach us about some very complex principles that cannot be ignored. If God hates Esau, then He hates His own brother and there is no eternal life in Him. I find that to be a major problem with a literal interpretation of Romans 9:13.
Then there is this conflicting verse found in Acts 10:34 where God declares “that He is no respecter of persons”. A respecter of persons is revealed when anyone treats one man differently from another man based upon what they do, what they say, how they look, what they own, etc. Partiality is when a person is given special or favored status over another individual based upon any selective criteria either known or unknown. According to verses like Acts 10:34 and Ephesians 6:9, God does not respect one person differently than another person. Therefore, how could God NOT show any favoritism to one man over another while hating one man and loving the other? Since that is not possible, then I have a problem with the statement that God hates Esau. There are just too many verses in the Bible that conflict with the statement that God hates any single man. Surely you can see that these truths that I just gave you are all incompatible verses in the Bible with the stated truth that God hates Esau. Therefore we have a great theological issue that needs immediate resolution. These issues can only be overcome by digging deeper to increase our spiritual knowledge and understanding on the given subjects and that is what I will attempt to do in the rest of this lesson. Here again are some of the key conflicts revealed in the Bible:
- Esau is no different than me because Romans 3:23 says all have sinned.
- John 3:16 says God so loved Esau that He gave His only begotten son to save Esau.
- Acts 10:34 God is no respecter of any Esau or Jacob.
- Jesus said when you have seen me you have seen the father and Jesus never hated any man even asking God to forgive those that killed Him on the cross.
- Jesus was born a physical brother of Esau and therefore cannot hate His own brother or He has no eternal life.
These are five very good reasons why we should not take the verse in Romans 9:13 literally. What we begin to see is the formation of certain specific central Bible truths that are apparently in direct opposition to a another misunderstood Bible truth which needs to be either re-balanced with the others or reinterpreted using the Bible in order to be correctly understood all together to eliminate all of the conflicts. One very important rule of correct Bible interpretation is simply stated that in the true meaning of two verses, no one verse of the Bible will ever contradict with any other verse of the Bible because God is the same Author of both verses and He is a constant and a NEVER CHANGING being. These are all complex statements and reasons that I just made. But if we continue surely you will begin to see that our understanding of at least one of the truths need to be changed or adjusted so that our view of the entire truth is increased by allowing God to shine a new light on it that will help to show us that God is a consistently good and loving God to every human. The mistake some fall into is to take one isolated Bible truth like God hates Esau and then try to exalt it to make it THE ENTIRE TRUTH that God hates homosexuals, murderers, rapists or whatever. This is the common error of what some Christians try to teach using the misapplication of one verse based upon their own human interpretation. Therefore the correct interpretation of every verse is absolutely essential to keep us from falling into error.
What Does God Hate?
We must attempt to balance all of the truths that we know in order to resolve and completely remove any potential conflicts that have arisen. Also understand that God is not the one that is confused; therefore it is only people that are currently experiencing the difficulty because of our current lack of complete knowledge and understanding. We do not know everything that God knows and that is why we still struggle. I think in order to begin to understand how to resolve these conflicts that we will first need to research in the Bible to see what it is that God says that He actually hates. Does God hate people or is it stated to be something else? If God hates people then that is where we need confirmation in the scriptures to establish a new truth. However, If God does hate people like Esau, then we will establish that God is confused since He clearly told us that “He so loved the world to die for Esau”. Let us discuss the subject of hate and find the stated things that God says that He hates. I’ll give you some quick examples of what I found in the Bible that God hates:
Zec 8:17 And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.
You can clearly see that God still hates both an evil imagination and lies. These are two specific descriptive actions that we will see as repeated patterns of the behavior types of people that do not know or love God or His Word. From this one verse, I can begin to see that it is the evil thoughts and the evil actions of the people that are hated and not specifically the people. I still believe that God so loved us that He provided a way out of our certain death and eternal separation from God, if we would only accept this free gift of salvation. Even Christians are still capable of thinking evil and doing evil, but simultaneously God’s shed blood is sufficiently powerful to cover all of our transgressions, past, present and future. But, this does not mean as we know that we are free to intentionally sin all we want to after we become saved, it only means if we do accidently that we are not automatically lost. Let me show you another verse in the Bible that speaks of God hating something:
Deu 12:31 Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
I think you can again see God’s stated hatred is directed at the evil actions of people killing their children. This is clearly a parallel to the modern actions of abortionists today. But, yet God does not say that He hates the people it only says that He hates the actions of the people killing their children. There is a huge difference between those two stated positions and it causes much confusion in the church. How can God love the sinner but still hate the sin? That is because they are not the same things. What you do is not necessarily always who you are. If it was we would all be in prison right now. There are churches in America that picket sinners and try to tell them that God hates them because of their sin, but that is foolishness and ignorance gone to seed. God is not a hater of people that He died to save. I keep saying that because I want to make sure that you get it and apply it to Esau. That is a ludicrous thing to ascribe to a God who is called Love. People just seem to forget that if God hates sinners then He must also hate them since God clearly says “all have sinned and come short of the His glory”. It is only a person’s deceived state of self-righteousness that makes them believe that they are better than anyone else. I’m only going to give you one more example of things that God hates since this could be a Bible lessons series all by itself:
Pro 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
Pro 6:17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
Pro 6:18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
Pro 6:19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
There are seven direct things listed that God still hates, but none of them are directly named as people even though some can easily try to say that they represent people by the descriptive terms used like the tongue and the feet features that all people possess. Read through the list and see if you can see where the emphasis is placed. Is it on the people or on the actions of people? So I believe that again we have confirmation that people can do these hated things but yet I believe that God will still loves them consistently even while hating their wrong actions. Here is the list of the seven hated things that I saw:
- Proud Look
- Lying Tongue
- Murder
- Wicked Imagination
- Mischief
- False Witness
- Sower of Discord
Wow, that is a tough list of things that people in the world and even in the church still do every day. Speaking lies is mentioned twice and that makes it even more serious to me. Thinking evil is again repeated as a hated action. Being proud and sowing discord are two incredible things that speak volumes to me and helps to identify who God is speaking of using Esau. We’ll get more to that soon. I personally believe that God is trying to teach us something new about what we should hate. If you go through your Bible God tells us to hate evil and to love good repeatedly (Psalm 34:14, 37:27, Isa 7:15, Amos 5:15). This would appear to me to be the lesson learned from reading about what God hates in the Bible. So I believe that God is trying to teach us to become more like Him in our thoughts and our actions. There is an established Bible pattern that teaches us that if we think good Godly things we will do good things, if we think evil demonic things then we will do evil things. Therefore, set your minds on the greater higher things above and God will direct you into the paths of life.
What I am trying to do is to show you that love and hate can coexist together simply because good and evil still coexist today in the world because of what Adam chose for us in Genesis 3. Therefore, it is only important to learn and to know what it is that God hates and what it is that He loves to correctly understand what we should love and hate. If God hates people we should hate people, but we clearly see that is not true. If God hates sin, then we should hate sin and that is certainly true. Go through your Bible and study the word “hate” and it’s forms. There are approximately 179 verses that contain a form of this word. Search them all and see what we are to hate and I believe you will conclude as I have that we should hate evil and not the evil doers.
We should love the good and we should hate the evil just like the God that never changes. I believe that this principal is what God is teaching using the Jacob and Esau examples. Based upon what we have just learned about hating evil and loving good, we would be forced to conclude that Esau was evil and that Jacob was good. But, since God does not hate people I have to adjust my interpretation in Romans 9:13 to say Esau must be a symbolic representation for these evil thoughts and actions that are present in the world. Any literal interpretation would force us to say that God hated Esau as a man and then God changed His mind and died to save this man. Since God is not a being that changes that is impossible.
Do you understand Bible symbolism? Symbolism occurs when God calls one thing by a name, title or description that we have heard about, can see and we can know and understand, but He is actually speaking figuratively of another hidden thing that we have not heard of, cannot see and do not know or understand. This is what I believe is happening in Romans 9:13 when God is speaking of two men that we can read about in Genesis, but have long since died and gone away from this physical reality. Therefore the verse in Romans 9:13 must be a symbolic representation of something unknown and much greater in meaning. If this is true, why was Esau used symbolically to represent evil deeds and why was Jacob used to represent what is done that is good? What is God trying to reveal to us using this story? That is why we need to go and read to find this out next.
What Does God Reveal About Jacob and Esau in Genesis?
Let’s go back to the story of the two brothers in Genesis quickly and go through the descriptive time before they were born to learn what God reveals about them. In learning about the boys we should begin to formulate what God is doing using them to represent what He hates and what He loves:
Gen 25:21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
This story in Genesis is very interesting. Let’s just first begin to look and observe at what is stated and then figure out what it all means later. What we are interested in these verses are the facts that God presented to help us to better understand things we do not know yet. You see there is nothing written in the Bible that is there by chance or accident. Every word has a designed purpose and a meaning for being included. Even the obscure stories of the people in Genesis contain more than just a history lesson for us to learn from. Here in this verse, Isaac’s wife Rebekah is barren and Isaac prays to God and she becomes pregnant. There is a lot of meaning behind this verse, but I cannot teach everything in one Bible lesson so let’s continue to the next verse:
Gen 25:22 And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.
While still in the womb there appears to be a great conflict arising between brothers even while they are still developing and growing. 
We could call it the beginning of an internal war between brothers that continues on the external after their birth. Wow that was a really important point that I just made, remember it. Put these concepts into your mind; 1). these boys are siblings, 2). they are fighting brothers and 3). the battle started before they were physically born on the earth. I will tell you that all of this information is symbolic and represents another spiritual battle and that this natural information appears to represent a much greater conflict than just a casual disagreement between natural brothers. But, we will get to that more soon. Notice that Rebekah the mother observes the fight occurring on the inside of her and prays to God to ask for the answer to what is happening and here is God’s reply that was given to her:
Gen 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
God looks down into the realm of time to view the boys as two future nations. God is not prophesying God is simply telling her of the future using His infinite foreknowledge. Many times God sees things in a big picture simultaneously even while speaking or describing specific details. Actually what God is doing is telling her of spiritual things to come, but we have not discovered that yet. While describing this internal physical turmoil of the two brothers fighting each other, they are literally labeled using the future terms of being two nations of people. Interesting concept isn’t it? Knowing verses like these dispel the rights of a woman to abort her future child/nation. Today how many nations of future children have been eliminated by ignorant mothers? While a woman may see the fetus as only one insignificant future potential being, God clearly saw each child as being a different nation of people. God combines every child with their descendants and speaks of them all collectively. God describes that these brothers represent not only two nations, but two different kinds of people and that they will be separated from the womb. God is revealing more than the obvious that they will be born and come out from their mother; He is saying they will not be the same people and even implies them to be opposed to each other and we can go further to call them opposing enemies. The Hebrew word translated as “separated” means to divide yourself one from another. This is a very important hidden Bible lesson subject to learn about division. This is the second time I have mentioned this subject so far, but I still do not have the time to teach it to you fully today. Just keep in mind, because it is very important. I will do an individual Bible study on this subject soon.
God also says that the older son will serve the younger son which completely reverses the normal course of inheritance where the first born son would always obtain the greater family blessing revealed in the O.T. Law of God. God further implies that the younger son will become the stronger child than the older and gain preeminence over his elder brother. These are all very key points to learn to associate with a greater hidden message than what is being presented from the surface historical story. What have we learned about Jacob and Esau so far? Here is my Top 10 List of things you should have learned:
- There are two brothers in direct opposition to each other
- The opposition begins before they are born into the natural world
- The opposition continues after they are born into the natural world
- One brother will be divided against the other brother
- The younger son is stronger but is not born first
- The younger son becomes ruler of the older son
- The elder son is born first but does not inherit from the father
- Therefore the older son loses his stated birthright
- The younger son is born second but does inherit from the father
- Even though they are brothers from one father, they are two separate nations of people
The Hidden Allegory Aspect of Jacob and Esau
Let me introduce you to a potentially new hidden concept found in the Bible. I briefly already mentioned that I believed that God was using Esau and Jacob as symbolism. Symbolism is very prevalent in the Bible where God uses a natural object to convey a spiritual truth, like a field, a pearl, a seed, etc. Allegory is like symbolism but it uses real people to introduce us to hidden spiritual beings we do not yet know fully. Allegory is a concept that just takes symbolism a step further in the Bible. Both allegory and symbolism use natural representations for spiritual realities. I will attempt to briefly discuss this concept called “Allegory” or “Allegorical” information to help you better understand what God has written to us in the Bible. If you have not already learned by now that not all of the information in the Bible is obviously presented then you have not studied the Bible for very long. Allegory is always a hidden technique of God and it is used to conceal spiritual information in the Bible using real natural stories found within the course of human/Bible history. Allegory is a technique that is actually very prevalent in the Bible but yet it is also well hidden at the same time. What I have started to realize is that almost every Old Testament story written in the Bible has a greater hidden story behind it of something else that is not clearly known, obviously presented or even directly taught. I have had people try to tell me that allegory was a manmade concept invented by people in the dark ages to try to dispel the things that I am trying to teach you about today. These types of people are usually just naturally thinking or carnally minded categories of people who do not wish to see the spiritual things of God. It is really not their entire fault because I believe that it is clearly Satan’s attempt at trying to keep them from knowing the truth. Allegory is easily found in the Bible if you look for it. Let me give you a dictionary definition of the word allegory:
Allegory
a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.
Hopefully you can clearly see what is described in this definition of the word allegory. Two key points need to be fully grasped from this definition. Within an allegory, there is always a story that is given which is a figurative representation of another truer story that is not given. The given allegorical information is always a symbolic treatment of a greater hidden story with transferring identical characters, characteristics, features, relationships and actions. The only thing that is not relevant in an allegory is the timing of the physical occurrence. In other words the order of events is important but not the time when they occurred. I think I’m not saying that exactly correct. You see everything certainly matters in the Bible. However the allegorical story given to us in the Bible is always a past historical event and the hidden spiritual story that it contains may be a representative type of an event that is a past, present or even a future event and possibly all three at the same time since God lives outside of the dimension of time. Allegory is an absolutely amazing way used by God to hide spiritual information in plain sight using easily understood words and stories. God tells us one true natural story about Jacob and Esau and in that story is another hidden story of information about two beings that are not named. Modern writers like C.S. Lewis in his books often used this technique or style of writing. In the Narnia book, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe there was a hidden story of Jesus, the devil and a door to salvation with our continuing spiritual battle resulting in of final victory. Therefore, C.S. Lewis understood the concepts of symbolism and allegory and he used it to tell a fictional child’s story that had a much greater hidden spiritual meaning for adults. That is exactly what God is doing with the story of Jacob and Esau. God writes a historical story that has direct meaning written to carnal men while hiding the real story that was written to spiritual men. The spiritual story clearly has the greater precedence and meaning than the natural story. But also it is impossible to understand the spiritual story without first understanding the natural story. Therefore the two stories (natural and spiritual) are eternally married together. This is the demonstrated wisdom of God and He invented this technique to teach us.
The first time that I really learned about the concept of allegory, I was reading the Bible and the Spirit of God spoke to me in my spirit for me to notice what He said in Galatians chapter 4 about Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. If you have never seen this you should stop and read this chapter right now. In this chapter God explains in great detail that this real historical story of Abraham is actually an allegorical picture of His own spiritual family and family members. There are five people mentioned in this story; one father, two mothers and two sons. God reveals to us that these two women (Sarah and Hagar) represent two different covenants with God. Since God is the initiator of these covenants, we can understand that God is the representative figure of the man Abraham in the story and Sarah as you can read in this chapter was the figurative representation of God’ first wife and she is revealed to be the “Jerusalem Above” (Gal 4:26). Hagar the Egyptian slave woman is used as a figurative symbolic representation of God’s second younger slave wife and she is revealed to be the “Jerusalem that now is” (Gal 4:25). That is an awesome revelation that God taught me so do not let it slip away from you. Therefore Hagar the slave girl represents the present earthly natural nation of Israel that was in covenant with God the Father in the Old Testament. What God does in this chapter is to reveal the existence of two spiritual women that were simultaneously in covenant with the Almighty God in the Old Testament. The Heavenly Jerusalem was the older first covenant wife and she is called the mature barren woman that gives birth to us the church (Gal 4:26). The second covenant wife of God is revealed to be the natural people of Israel and they are still in bondage to the law that God had given to them on Mt. Sinai until this very day. What I want you to do is to start putting the puzzle pieces together that I am presenting to you today. Did you notice in this allegory described in Galatians 4 that the story was about two sons and two separate nations? There was one nation in heaven and one nation here on the earth. Was that not what God said about Esau and Jacob? The Bible is repeated patterns and these patterns teach us some amazing things. I do not have the time to fully elaborate on this entire allegory to teach you everything that is revealed in great detail. What I want to do is to teach you the concepts that are revealed in this allegory to help you to transfer this knowledge to the allegorical information revealed in Rebekah’s two children Esau and Jacob.
In every allegorical story found in the Bible (and there are many of them) there is always a real historical story containing real people with real relationships, doing real things, in real important ways, with a specific order of events and all of these recorded words reflect a hidden aspect of something in the spiritual dimension that you would normally not even know existed. It is an absolutely masterful way of hiding the truth in plain sight used by God. This method presents valid truthful natural information while simultaneously concealing the greater valid spiritual information. So if you are reading in the Old Testament and only seeing the natural things that were written you are virtually missing the most important spiritual messages that God was trying to reveal to you. I hope you understand the concept of allegory because I can see the story of Jacob and Esau to be highly allegorical with vast hidden spiritual information in everything written in the story.
I believe that I have gone long enough in this lesson. I have introduced you to many new things to think about. I have taught you that there are conflicts in the Bible that we need to resolve. I showed you five conflicting scriptural points that contradict what God says about hating Esau. Therefore, I have concluded that God was not speaking literally but figuratively when using these two brothers to describe what He loves and hates. I showed you multiple verses and asked you to go through the other verses searching for what God hates in the Bible. I believe I showed you enough verses that show that God hates sin while still loving the sinner. I also went through a part of the birth of Esau and Jacob in Genesis to show what God reveals about them before they were born and then shortly after. Finally I introduced you to the new concept of allegory and how God uses natural Bible stories to describe to us spiritual stories that we have never seen or heard before. In the next lesson I will attempt to expand what the Bible says about whom Jacob and Esau represent figuratively. These symbolic natural brothers are representative types of spiritual brothers. These are really deep complex subjects found in the Bible. If you understand what I am trying to say please let me know. If you have questions about anything already stated, please let me know that also. This is probably one of the most advanced Bible lessons on my whole website. It will probably overwhelm many baby or carnal Christians. I have worked a long time on trying to simplify the message, but that is truly very difficult. In the next lesson we will continue to talk about more specifically who Jacob and Esau can represent. I pray that you will hang in there and continue trying to learn even if you do not fully get every point yet. Until next time may God enlighten the eyes of your spiritual understanding to see all that He has done. God Bless!
If you would like to continue and read the next lesson in this series you can jump to “Part 6.2“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 9
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 9 in a series of advanced Bible lessons on the complex methods that God has used to conceal spiritual information in the Bible for us to find. If you like solving challenging puzzles, riddles and mysteries then you should enjoy studying the Bible. The Bible is full of God’s hidden spiritual wisdom using words that we can plainly understand and I call this “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight”. Not too many people have studied this subject primarily because they did not know that God had done this. But, by learning of the existence of these technical methods, what they are and how they work, we should greatly increase our ability to understand the truth of God’s Word. Hiding the truth using standard plain text writings is a very complex system to recognize and to understand and it clearly demonstrates the extreme intelligent design of a God who is capable of doing these things using the words placed in plain view where any man has the opportunity to break the encoded messages. Since I am a former computer programmer with over 25 years of experience and training I understand complex system design better than most laymen. I have worked on and developed some very large and extremely complex computer systems which would have been a challenge for anyone to learn. But, to introduce any new novice programmer to them it would have been overwhelming for them to try to learn and to understand them, much less to change or to maintain them without breaking the system. Now if you are not a computer programmer, you would be more than overwhelmed with trying to figure out how the system works externally, much less trying to figure out how it works internally at the code instruction level. This is why very few people understand the Bible when reading it. You see the Bible has an external message using words that anyone can read, but it also has an internal spiritual message that only Christians can come to understand. When I read the Bible, I can see God’s intelligent design using a series of complex system word components and concealing techniques that while He makes the words plainly readable, the underlying truth is completely hidden from the view of naturally minded men and women. You have to be extremely intelligent to design a system like this and I believe God definitely qualifies for the job. To me, learning about how God hides information in the Bible has furthered my beliefs that He is the author of this book. Hopefully as you read and study these techniques you will be able to recognize these methods also and learn how to decipher the hidden spiritual meanings behind the words that you are reading. I have covered a lot of subjects already in this series of lessons and I will not be repeating the information previously given in any detail. So, if you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1“.
Technique 9: Speaking in a Third Person Style of Writing about Yourself
This next technique for concealing the truth in the Bible is intermixed randomly in several different books, chapters and verses and it is often very difficult to find and recognize unless you know what to look for. I call it God writing or telling a story about Himself from a seemingly unknown, unnamed or anonymous third person view point or perspective. In other words in this style of writing God speaks about certain people, events or actions all the while referring to Himself as a nameless man who does something natural like sow a seed in a field, get a wife for his son, cut down a tree or some other physical action that portrays or reveals a greater hidden spiritual reality to us. Authors in our world who write fictional books utilize this technique frequently when telling a story. This writing style allows greater creativity and multiple viewpoints to be established and it greatly complicates the landscape when you want to conceal information. I believe that God uses the anonymous third person writing style predominantly all throughout the Bible. I want to start by teaching you examples of what it is, then how it works and finally give you some specific hidden examples of it in the Bible. Let’s start at the beginning and read in the Book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1 that is written as if Moses was a witness to the creation events.
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
As you can read in these first three verses of Genesis there is someone watching or observing what is happening during creation who is never named directly. The observer is clearly an anonymous hidden personality. God is named directly by name in this example, but God is not the first person speaker or observer. What you can see is someone else is watching what God says and then telling us about it. Since Moses was not there to witness creation, we can assume that God is describing the events and He uses Moses to record them. Therefore, God is using a third person perspective for the references to His personal point of view, but every name, place and event is mentioned is that of a real person place and thing that actually exists and happens. In other words God names, names and describes actual events that transpired without saying “I saw the darkness” and “I did this”. God is directly quoted saying words, but God is not speaking directly. The words are heard as if someone was there to watch God create the world. This is a very complex tricky way of telling you something without telling you something directly. The writing style conveys implied and hidden information that is not directly mentioned. I hope you understand this simple example that I just gave you because it does get more complicated than this as we go forward.
I want to stop here and make another point that is important for you to know about. Just because God uses this writing style in Genesis 1 does not mean that God does not also utilize other techniques of concealing information in this same chapter. For example, I have discovered that the book of Genesis is widely symbolic information especially in the first three chapters. This use of symbolism allows God to hide the true identity of Satan as being the deceiving serpent for instance. Satan is later revealed to be this ancient serpent in Revelation 12, but you would not really know that by just reading Genesis. So clearly the serpent was a symbolic hidden reference name to conceal the identity of Satan. Then there are hidden analogies found in Genesis that are clearly much greater complex spiritual truths that hide this information and makes it very hard to find. This is just a small part of the complexity of the Bible and a demonstration of the intelligence of the design of God’s Word. God can use multiple methods of hiding information in the same book, chapter or verse of the Bible and you have to become smart enough to recognize them all to get the real meaning. Today’s lesson is about technique number 9 and I’m not convinced that I am done writing about them all. So reading the first three chapters of Genesis you might encounter seven of the nine techniques used to conceal truth in the Bible intermixed. For example:
- Widely dispersed Truths: Gen 3:1 The serpent is not revealed until Revelation 12. Adam is first mentioned by name in Genesis 2, but he is also mentioned in the New Testament and many other places in the Bible.
- Symbolism: Genesis 1:16, The Greater Light to Rule the Day, revealed to be Jesus the Sun of Righteous in Malachi 4:2 and other scriptures. The serpent is clearly a symbolic reference in Genesis 3:1.
- Referring to the Same Thing Using Multiple Names or Titles: The woman in Genesis 1, 2 and 3 is called “Adam” or “man” in Gen 1:27, “help meet” in Gen 2:18, “woman” in Gen 2:22, “wife” in Gen 2:24, “Eve” in Gen 3:20, “Mother” in Gen 3:20.
- Calling Multiple Things by the Same Name: This is found in Genesis 2:20 where God names the man “Adam”. This name is also given to Jesus the Last Adam in 1 Cor 15:45.
- Types and Shadows: Adam and his wife are shadows of Jesus and his wife the Church. Just as Eve was the Body of Adam, so the Church is the Body of Christ.
- Telling a Story Without Any Explanations: There is clearly the story of creation in Genesis 1 without any explanation of how it was created or when it was created. Genesis 2, God creates the woman from the man, but never explains why.
- Third Person Writing Style: As I have pointed out you can see in Genesis 1 an unknown or unnamed witness to creation is narrating the events that occurred. This clearly has to be God’s point of view but it is not spoken of or revealed to us directly.
This is the complexity of understanding the Bible. If anybody told you that the Bible was easy to understand they lied to you intentionally or they were heavily deceived into thinking they knew more than they actually knew. In just the first three chapters there are clearly seven or eight different concealing techniques intermixed to make the truth unrecognizable to the casual reader. I did not attempt to list every example or to even explain them in any great detail. So you either saw them or you didn’t. I have learned that Bible study is like digging for gold; you might get lucky on the surface, but to really strike it rich you have to dig deep. You must dig very deep and study for countless hours to come to the knowledge of the truth or you have to read the blogs of someone who has done this already and you will save yourself a lot of valuable time. Let’s continue our study of the third person writing style and discover some other ways God has used this technique to conceal information in the Bible
Some modern day fictional writers have copied what God has done in writing about a seemingly unknown or an anonymous man when they are actually writing about themselves in hidden terms. This technique is very similar to when Jesus would speak to us in parables describing new complex spiritual things in a story about a man who had a field. Let me give you a quick review of a parable and how Jesus used it to describe Himself:
Mat 13:31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
Here we have a statement that God is speaking a parable about some powerful spiritual truths using natural recognizable descriptions of some things that were found easily on the earth. Most of the people that Jesus was speaking to understood farming concepts and where food came from and how it worked, however few to none of them understood how to transfer this information into the spiritual realm and determine what it meant. So here in this verse Jesus is speaking using the technique of parables that I have covered before using encoded symbolic descriptors about the Kingdom of Heaven. We therefore understand what to look for in the statement by knowing these two important facts. Remember that a parable is almost always given to us in a statement that says “something” is like “something else” and this alerts us into a mental transition on how we think about the statements that are given next. Here in this parable Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed a grain of mustard seed in his field. We know from this information that God is speaking of spiritual things using symbolism in a third person anonymous writing style. In this chapter it just so happens that Jesus is telling the story about an unnamed man and this is the reverse logic we found in the first Chapter of Genesis where we saw an unnamed person telling a story of what God says. However, this unnamed man in the parable is clearly God. Therefore, we must make the mental transformation to see the man who sows the seed to be a hidden reference to God and what He will do or has done. It further goes to say that God has a garden which is a place to plant seeds. We can understand that the field is symbolic, the seed is symbolic, “sowing” is symbolic as well as the man is symbolic and we must convert these into their spiritual meanings in order to understand the story correctly. If you have read my series of lessons on “Understanding Seeds” in the Bible you will better understand what is being taught. So I will not go through and attempt to re-explain all of the elements in the parable in this lesson. What I want you to see is my key point that God is speaking of Himself as being a symbolic unnamed man that sows a symbolic seed into His field and that these natural things reflect much greater hidden spiritual truths.
That last example wasn’t too hard to figure out since maybe you already understand the parable concepts that I taught earlier. However, what if God took away the information about this is a parable and that something is like something else and He only told you the story? Could you be smart enough to put it together and recognize what God is talking about? By removing this information it would dramatically make it more complex to figure out what is being taught. If you would allow me I’ll change this one verse and omit those introductory facts so can see how it might change it if God would have chosen to do this:
Mat 13:31 A man took a grain of mustard and sowed in his field:
You see without the key information given that this is a parable which is conveying spiritual things about the Kingdom of Heaven, how would you ever figure out what God is talking about? I think you would not be able to put the two realities together without this information even though the information can still be determined by using some logical assumptions. It just makes it significantly more difficult to come up with the correct interpretation if God would do this and guess what? God has done this numerous times in the Bible. Here is a good example of this found in a statement that Jesus makes in Matthew 19:
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
Mat 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Mat 19:6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Here is Jesus speaking again of marriage and the fact that God created them male and female in the beginning. However, did you notice what Jesus said and how He said it? Be precise and pay very close attention to every word spoken. In verse 4 Jesus says “Have you not read” and then He says “that he which made them”. Who was he that made them? It was the speaker of the question, “he who made them” was Jesus. The creator God is doing the speaking and He calls Himself an anonymous pronoun of “he”. That is a prime example of an anonymous “third person” reference to Himself using the personal pronoun of “he”. Think with me and see what is happening here in this statement. God is not lying or fabricating information, He is just not revealing everything that He could have. Jesus could have said “I created them male and female”, but this would have gotten Him stoned for claiming to be God. God is using this style for several reasons, but you can see that it is very clever to speak this way. It gives the information that you want to provide without revealing things that you do not wish to reveal. Next, Jesus is basically quoting from Genesis 2:24 and this is a prime example of how God is writing something about a physical man who we can all relate to, named Adam and it directly applies to the spiritual man named Jesus (the Last Adam) also. Remember that in Matthew 13:31 Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a “man” who sows a grain of mustard seed in a field. I have concluded that the symbolic man being referred to is God. Therefore, if you read this verse in Matthew 19:5 you will see another unnamed “man” being spoken of. You can assume that Jesus is only speaking about Adam or you can open your eyes and see that Jesus is revealing more than you know right now. Because Jesus does not name the man, the man is open to being a greater spiritual truth. Jesus of course called himself the “son of man” frequently. So Jesus was definitely a “man”. Therefore, we can make the jump that Jesus could be talking about himself in this verse leaving His Father in heaven and coming to the earth. We also know from studying the Bible that Jesus will soon be formally married to His bride and you can read about that in Revelation 19:7. Therefore we can see very clearly how the church becomes the body of Christ since it is by the law of marriage given to us in Genesis 2:24 that make this possible. God clearly tells us that the two shall be joined to become one flesh (body). Finally, in verse 6 of Matthew 19, Jesus makes this statement “what God has joined together, let no man put asunder”. This statement is not a quote from Genesis 2:24 and we must conclude that Jesus is associating this statement with Genesis 2:24 for a purpose. God is using some more cleverly designed words to hide spiritual information in this verse. Here, God is speaking and He says what God has joined together meaning God joined someone together by the law of covenant marriage. Again if you only think that He is speaking of Adam you are limiting your perspective to a natural pattern that does not take into account the spiritual information being concealed in it. Then Jesus says “Let no man put asunder”. When Adam was created there were no other men on the planet to put them asunder, so you can obviously see that Jesus is not talking about Adam and Eve in this statement. Who is Jesus speaking of here? Wow, that is a very tough question to answer much less to see. You see Jesus has come to the earth and taken on the form of His creation in the body of a man, for what purpose? I personally believe that Jesus is the man that came to put asunder Satan from God. I know you do not have enough information or knowledge to affirm what I have just told you. We have to understand the law of marriage that Jesus is speaking of in Genesis 2:24 and see that when Jesus is joined to His bride, according to the law of marriage He must leave his Father and his mother and become one with His bride. So covenant marriage is a dividing force that creates a new spiritual family. The Son of God is in the process of creating a new spiritual family for God in order to eliminate the old family members of God which include Satan and his angels. These are new concepts for many people, but if you study your Bible you will see that they are true.
There are numerous examples in the Bible of this technique of writing indirectly about yourself that God uses and I will give you another classic example found in Isaiah 53. This chapter should be very familiar to you because it is often referred to in many circles to be all about Jesus. However, not one time is the name of Jesus directly mentioned and most of the references to Him are in a third person style of writing where a certain man is being described externally and anonymously. I am not going to go through every verse in this chapter, if you desire to you may stop and read the entire chapter to verify that the name of Jesus is never mentioned.
Isa 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Isa 53:7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
Isa 53:9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Isa 53:12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Chapter 53 of Isaiah is a very complex chapter to study. The viewpoint of the writer seems to change from an unknown and unnamed group of people who are observing to the viewpoint of another unnamed individual at the end of the chapter. This would appear to create a shifting landscape to how we should interpret these verses. These are just a few sample verses found in this chapter of Isaiah. You can clearly see a nameless man is being spoken of. This is the common theme of the entire chapter regardless of the changing perspective. In the beginning of the chapter, a group of people are mentioned as the observers. There are numerous pronoun references of “our” and “we”. Nowhere in this chapter is there the name of this primary individual being spoken of or the observers who are watching so clearly you can see a technique of concealing information by omitting some key details.
We could assume that the observing people are the natural nation of Israel, but you might be able to see that this group could also be the spiritual people of God, the church. Throughout this chapter, God is using prophetic words about an anonymous man who will come to the earth in the future. God is using a technique of a third person descriptive story to talk about Himself in a hidden way. God inserts several clues that any Christian today would clearly recognize is Jesus, but to the scribes and the Pharisees they missed it and did not understand that they killed their Messiah. Jesus was the Lamb of God sacrificed for the sins of mankind. Jesus was hung on a cross among criminals on either side of Him. There are just too many descriptive words in this writing of Isaiah that makes it obvious to me, but I can see the one that I know personally and it is easier for me to recognize than for someone who does not know Him. As you continue down the reading in this chapter you see a change of perspective taking place. Now we have another viewpoint being given to us. This viewpoint seems to be a singular view point of a person being referred to as “I” and “My”. Changing perspective in the middle of a chapter is a tricky way to conceal information. It can be easily overlooked and even ignored when you casually read the words. We are never told who the observers are; we just have to recognize that the observer changed. These are complex puzzles to try to solve, but God has placed these things in the Bible for a purpose. If you look closely in the Old Testament you will find this writing technique repeated in a very effective way to conceal the truth. God speaks about somebody and prophesies events in their life, but never says who it is and never says who is observing it. Usually when this is done it is always a reference to God Himself in a hidden plain text technique. Also the hidden perspective can also be from God’s point of view and this is what you should look for first. As you read your Bible look for it and see it and you will better understand what you are reading.
These are some of techniques that God has taught me from the Bible and these are not all of them that I can talk about. We will talk about more of them sometime in the future. Keep studying your Bible and digging for the truth and we will all find it together.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on understanding God’s spiritual hiding methods then please continue with “Part 10“.
Understanding the Coming Anti-Christ! The Different King! Part 2
(Ver 1.1) This is Part 2 of a series of lessons on Understanding the coming Anti-Christ revealed to us in the Bible. If you read the first lesson, you no doubt heard a few new things that were difficult to accept because they were mostly new concepts for many. I have read some other teacher’s material and I am not alone in what I taught you in lesson 1. In this first lesson I showed you several verses found in 2 Thessalonians that heavily indicates that the coming antichrist will be Satan incarnate. If you have never thought about that before, then you probably drew back from those statements. Does Satan have the power and ability to do what God does? Does Satan have the knowledge to do what God does? Can Satan learn from watching God and repeat or at the minimum mimic and mock God’s works and words with his own similar signs and wonders? These of course are difficult questions to answer. If Satan is capable of doing what God does, this would mean Satan when he was created was made to be like God in every aspect and feature. We can only assume that Satan was made on a lower level or scale than God, but nonetheless still made to resemble the Most High God. If you have not read from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go and start you reading in this series with “Part 1”.
We learned in the first lesson that the coming antichrist is called the “man of sin” or the “man of lawlessness”. We also saw that he is directly called the “son of perdition” or the “son of destruction”. All of these names are terms that can be directly associated with Satan. So today I will explore this subject of the antichrist from a different angle, giving you some new Bible verses about this coming man of sin. I want to look at some verses found in the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel is a heavily symbolic book of information that contains both historical and future prophetic information. The book of Daniel also ends with God telling the prophet to seal up the words that were written until the time of the end so that they can be revealed. Since we are now living in the time of the end, I believe God has started revealing the meanings of this book to His people on the earth. I mean what do we need to know this information in heaven for? There will be no Satan, no enemy, no spiritual battles in heaven. So this information will be virtually worthless when we all get there. So we must be smart enough to allow God to show us what these verses mean now.
Dan 7:19 Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet;
The book of Daniel paints a very bleak picture concerning a coming world kingdom. Many in the world have been calling for this kingdom for decades not realizing what they are doing. The term “A New World Order” has been a popular phrase that will help introduce this new satanic kingdom to the masses. I’m not going to teach the entire book of Daniel today, there is just too much information to even try to do that. I am only focused in on the coming one beast of the antichrist found in this book. I will tell you briefly that Daniel in chapter 7 gives us a vision of four world kingdoms. Three have already been raised up and have fallen in the past, but one is still left to come. Here in this verse of Daniel 7:19, it says that this fourth coming kingdom will be different than the others that came before it. So if you want to know how this kingdom is different you are going to have to do an in-depth study of the other three to see how they were. I will not elaborate on all of the differences in that level of detail in this lesson. I will however, address two factors that makes the coming kingdom different than any other previous kingdoms and these are my main points today. You see while Daniel describes this beast and these kingdoms he gives us some valuable clues to what to look for. In every previous world kingdom there has always been a limited scope of the definition of the inhabited world. In other words, the main part of the world back in Daniel’s day was only parts of Europe, Asia and northern Africa. No previous world ruler actually ruled the entire world, it was just geographically impossible for an army with so few soldiers to accomplish a true world kingdom. So every world kingdom of that day never ruled North or South Americas or Australia and a few other places in the world. So one of the key features of the coming new World Empire of the antichrist that will come is that it will have to rule as much of the inhabited world as possible and this is a very large area. I believe that this will be one key difference of the coming empire from the past kingdoms, but not the only difference.
Dan 7:20 And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.
It is of course difficult for people to see what the Bible says if they have never studied it. Verses like these and those found in the book of Revelation are extremely challenging to understand. You can simply tell this by the number of idiot interpretations we can find on the internet for the exact same Bible information. I can remember 40 years ago hearing preachers teach of the coming 10 nation alliance and they saw this as being 10 European nations that were going to form the European Union to create a new world super power. Now that the EU has way more than 10 members, I do not know how they explain what they taught 40 years ago. These were just crazy private interpretations of the Word of God that caused confusion and they are still being taught today in many church circles. I learned from these preachers and teachers that you do not name names that are not found in the Bible. Whenever you do this you get it wrong ten times out of ten attempts consistently. What we can see is that the 10 horns represent 10 new Kings and you can read this in Revelation 17:12. These kingdoms did not exist in the time of the writings of the book of Revelation and it implies that they will be new Kings and Kingdoms of only a very short duration in time. Therefore to speculate who they are is pure conjecture and mindless rumors, so I will not participate in spreading these lies. There is also always a reference to an eleventh coming King that will arise and I believe this man to be the actual antichrist. Here in Daniel 7:20 it says this horn will have eyes and a mouth that speaks great things and will be stronger than the other ten kings.
Dan 7:21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;
As you can see the antichrist king will be opposed to God, Christ, the Bible and Christians everywhere. He will be strong enough to pursue and persecute them heavily this verse says. The antichrist knows that his time is very short left on the earth so he is doing whatever he thinks he can to either extend his time on the earth or to delay the coming end as long as he can. Let’s skip down to verse 23:
Dan 7:23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
We can again see that this coming fourth world Kingdom will attempt to control and destroy the whole earth. We can clearly see that the term “whole earth” is used to emphasize one of the ways how this kingdom will be different than those that came before it. It also clearly states that this beast will be bent upon the spread of destruction and mayhem. We can definitely see the hand of Satan personally at work in this kingdom. These are just more scriptures that tell me that the coming antichrist will be Satan incarnate and this is what also makes this kingdom so different than all previous world kingdoms. While Satan might have influenced and backed the previous world rulers of the past, he was never here to rule physically himself until this coming kingdom. So I strongly believe that you can see how this coming kingdom will be so radically different than all of those that came before.
Dan 7:24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
Here we have another verse that informs us that the 10 horns are symbolically representative of 10 kings on the earth. I believe that these ten are all naturally deceived men, the descendants of Adam who are here already but maybe not yet in power. However, this verse then clearly tells us of another king who will arise that will be much different than the ten others. This king will take three world rulers out or down in rapid succession. I still believe that this new eleventh king is Satan incarnate who will remove 3 kings from power on the earth. This will leave a total of 7 kings left with the eighth being the antichrist. If the eleventh king is Satan incarnate it would help to explain why he is so different than all of the others mentioned and why he does what he is said to do.
Dan 7:25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Here is more difficult information, but yet it is also confirming information for what we read in 2 Thessalonians in lesson 1 on the coming antichrist. You can pretty clearly see that this man will be the one who speaks vehemently against everything that is Holy or that is God. This verse also gives us Satan’s reasons and motivations for everything that he is attempting to do. This verse says that Satan is motivated by two primary factors, first he is seeking to change the times set by God and second he wants to eliminate the law of God. These are two very critical pieces of information to what is inspiring Satan’s great and fierce anger toward both God and mankind on the earth. Satan hates everything and everyone, but Satan especially hates the Jews. Why does Satan hate the Jews so much? What do the Jews possess today that makes him hate them so much? Why does Satan want to kill all of the Jews on the planet earth? If you do not understand it is because of the Law of Moses, then you do not clearly understand what God has done and has accomplished with Jesus Christ coming to the planet in the flesh. God had to do something to put Satan under the law in order to convict him of his sins. You cannot convict anyone that is not under the law of the physical or spiritual nation where they are. You do understand this, don’t you? One country in our world can make it illegal for you to wear blue clothes, but unless you go to that country wearing blue clothes, you cannot be convicted of that crime even if you are wearing blue clothes right now. This is called legal jurisdiction or authority. Satan came to the earth which had been given to Adam and he became the god of this world, the Bible says. Adam had legal jurisdiction for what happened in the world. But, there were no laws so Satan was a free spiritual being able to do whatever he wanted practically until God showed up. So God gave Israel the law for several reasons, but one of them was to get Satan under this law.
The only way to eliminate the law of God is to eliminate those who are bound to it. The natural nation of Israel is still bound by God’s O.T. laws. So Satan is still highly motivated to kill them all so that he can hope to take himself out from under this law of God. This is why Satan tried to kill every Jew with Adolf Hitler and this is why every Muslim nation in the world hates the natural nation of Israel and wants to drive them all into the sea today. As soon as a nation like Iran gets nuclear weapons, Israel is in deep trouble, because I believe that they will not hesitate to use them against Israel. Let’s back up in the book of Daniel and look at another vision being related to us about the coming antichrist’s kingdom.
Dan 2:32 This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
Dan 2:33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
Dan 2:34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
It is extremely interesting to study this picture puzzle being presented to us in the Bible. God gives a dream vision to the king of Babylon and Daniel writes it down for us to read. This is a vision of the same beasts that we looked at in Daniel 7 briefly but from a new and different perspective. This image is of one human body type of a male, but made up of five different parts and materials. You can read that the first part is said to be made of gold and this represents the makeup of the head. I believe that this is a representative type of Satan’s original greatness. If you recall in the Bible, Christ is also called the Head of the Body in Ephesian 5, but this body is the church and the body in Daniel 2 is a composite of the beasts. I believe that this is not a coincidence comparison between Jesus and the King of Babylon or Satan. This to me confirms that the coming antichrist will be another attempt of Satan to exalt himself to the same level of Christ. The Bible tells us that the head is representative of the Babylonian King Nebucadnezzar. I personally believe that this king is a symbolic type of a coming Satan figure. There are actually 5 kingdoms described to us in this dream and they are listed below in this table:
| Kingdom | Description |
| Gold (Head) | Babylonian Empire(Daniel 2:37-38) |
| Silver (Arms & Shoulders) | Medo-Persian Empire |
| Bronze (Torso) | Greek Empire |
| Iron (Legs) | Roman Empire |
| Iron and clay (Feet) | Antichrist’s Empire |
We can observe two things very quickly from this list of world kingdoms. First, is the fact that they go from oldest head kingdom to most modern the futuristic feet kingdom. I believe that metal is a symbolic representation of a spiritual power or force in this vision. Metal has value and strength associated with it. It is also interesting to note that the list of metals given goes from most valuable to least valuable in terms of monetary value and significance. Meaning the last kingdom will be the least valuable from all of the others that came before it. It actually reveals to us that Satan’s spiritual power has diminished from God’s perspective. Metals of course are a highly used symbolic agent in the Bible and can represent many things. Metals are tried by fire and are what remains from a smelting process which causes purification the Bible tells us. These of course could apply to Satan’s world also. Gold is of course outrageously priced in our current world economy and it is the most valuable metal given to us in the list. The value of silver is of course the next most valuable metal in the list of five items given to us. Bronze would be the next most valuable and then followed by iron which builds a lot of our cars and buildings that we use today. The final kingdom which is described by the feet is said to be a new mixture that has never existed before and again this points us to the fact that this one will be Satan incarnate. While these other kingdoms were backed by Satan, Satan was not here physically to rule in them. What is clay? Where does clay come from? Was Adam’s body formed from the dust of the earth? Clay, dirt, dust are all synonymous terms for what our bodies are made of. So we can clearly see that the coming feet Kingdom will be a combination of the previous spiritual metal works that backed the Roman Empire, but this time it will be mixed with human flesh. I believe that this is a clear prophetic picture of the incarnate Satan from a picture diagram and the hidden puzzle given to us in a vision and dream from God.
Isa 64:8 But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
A potter is the symbolic name for the creator of symbolic clay vessels. This verse is pretty clear when it calls us the people of the earth these clay vessels that have been created by the potter, God. It is very clear to me what God is saying to us now by seeing verses like this one in the Bible. God is calling the last kingdom of the iron and clay feet a combined unification of the evil spiritual with the evil natural flesh. This is exactly what God did in the reverse when He came to the earth in the form of Jesus Christ. We can very clearly see the symbolic representations being given to us in these Old Testament prophecies found in Daniel concerning the last earthly kingdom. The coming of this kingdom is not that far off from being established in the earth, so if you think it is not near you have already been deceived. I have heard from several deceived commenters on the internet about things that I have written about and they claim many things like, all of the kingdoms in Daniel two and seven have already occurred and they have fallen already. When Jesus was here he toppled the last kingdom so there are no others to come. So many people have been deceived into believing so many crazy things that it is virtually impossible to help everyone. I hope and pray that you have not fallen into any of these deceptions. Satan’s coming world kingdom is very close at hand and he wants to cause you to have doubts that it is even possible for him to manifest in the flesh to present himself as a man that looks like one us. This attitude of deception is exactly what caused the natural nation of Israel to miss the coming of their real Messiah, so do not let it be your downfall in believing that Satan is your coming Messiah when he shows up in person.
Satan when he shows up (is revealed) in the world will look like one of us, talk like one of us and even act like one of us to gain power and the control of the masses of nations. You may wonder how it will be possible that one man can do so much, but you only have to look at our world and you will see how fragile a place we live in today. The world’s economies are on the verge of bankruptcy and collapse. The U.S. borrows money from communist countries to survive. So when a man comes along who offers solutions on the surface to every world crisis, it will be very appealing to those who need answers fast. Perhaps we will discuss the mark of the beast and how Satan will use this tool to gain control of the population of the world in the next lesson on the coming antichrist. Also, in my next lesson on this man of sin I will give you verses that show us that he will possess supernatural powers to deceive and do lying miracles. So God Bless you until next time!
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Understanding the Coming Antichrist, please go to “Part 3“.
The Riddle and the Puzzle in the Bible of the Missing Row on Satan’s Breastplate?
(Ver 1.2) There are many people who do not understand how the Bible was written. God has hidden a countless number of mysteries, riddles and puzzles in the Bible for us to solve with His help. These riddles are always word based puzzles. All of these puzzles are implemented with techniques that use hidden and spread out information that makes them very hard to find. These mysteries are of course much more difficult to solve than they are to find but many of the puzzles are also very hard to recognize by just reading the Bible. Today I am going to show you one of these very complex puzzles that I have been working on from the Bible for several years and so far have not completely solved the entire mystery of the puzzle. I want to share what I know today with those on the Web to challenge you to see it and then to think and help me to see things that maybe I have not thought of. There are certainly people on the web that have also found this puzzle, but clearly they have not understood it completely either. I believe that since we are so very close to the time of the end, that God is intending that we should know what these puzzles mean before He returns for us. The biggest problem that I have with most of the interpretations that I have found on the web concerning this mystery is that they are all someone’s opinion on what it means. No one gave any Bible verses to establish the truth. So that is a major problem with most interpretations, they are “Private Interpretations” and these are not allowed (2 Peter 1:20). This however, does not stop men from coming up with their own personal interpretations of what they think the Bible means. The Spirit of God began to show me this puzzle almost 20 years ago and even though I have studied it over and over, I have not come to a definite meaning to what is being taught. So, I will share with you what I know and maybe God can use someone else to help solve the mystery. In the Old Testament, Moses was given specific instructions of how to make the Temple of God and the garments of the Priests. There are several articles of clothing of the priests with some very specific items that all must have symbolic meanings. The garments of the priest are said to be holy. One of the key pieces of the Priest’s wardrobe was a breastplate. This breastplate was put on over the head and shoulders of the high priest and covered his chest and back areas of his body. This resembles what many soldiers wore while they were in battle to protect themselves from blows to their bodies. The breastplate was an outward covering of the body and specifically the upper torso.
There are two places in Exodus that specifically lists the qualities found in the breastplate and these verses describe the breastplate to us in some detail. One of the places this is found is in Exodus 28 and the other is in found Exodus 39. We will only focus in on the description found in Exodus 28 in this lesson today:
Exo 28:15 And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work; after the work of the ephod thou shalt make it; of gold, of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen, shalt thou make it.
The priest’s breastplate is called the Breastplate of Judgment. The word judgment means a judge’s verdict or degree, either for or against you. Every mention of titles, names or specific qualities of the breastplate I believe all have symbolic meanings. I believe that God is more interested in teaching us about spiritual things than He is making us look like we worship external manmade idols. The breast plate consists of three colors of threads. One is Blue, the second is purple and the third was scarlet. I believe these colors also have symbolic meanings attached to them. Now God begins to describe the stones that should be included on the external covering of the breastplate:
Exo 28:17 And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.
As you can see God picks very specific stones and a very specific arrangement, placement and order to each stone. The stones are arranged as we discover in 4 rows of 3 stones each for a total of 12 stones in all. This is a very key number to remember. I believe that the number 12 is also symbolic of spiritual things. We know from study that Israel had 12 tribes, that there are 12 hours in a day, Jesus picked 12 apostles and the foundation of the New Jerusalem has 12 specific parts that we may look at later. Let’s continue through the rest of the rows of stones given by God:
Exo 28:18 And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.
Exo 28:19 And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.
Exo 28:20 And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings.
So we have a list of 12 unique individual stones with no duplicates arranged in a pattern of rows and columns. It just so happens that rows and columns are a sommone type of computer database concept and terminology. If you are familiar with Spread Sheets like Microsoft Excel, then you also can understand how rows and columns play a factor in what God is showing us by this specific diagramed information. If you understand these concepts it may help you to see where we go later in this lesson. Then in the next verse in Exodus we see another association being made.
Exo 28:21 And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.
Each stone is engraved with the name of the sons of Jacob. What order to place the names, however is not given to us. We could assume that it is in the order of birth given to us in Genesis 29 and 30, or we could assume it is in some other order like the names of the tribes given to us in Revelation 7:5-8 or even Ezekiel 48:31-34. However, in each case example that I just gave you, God lists the 12 sons of Jacob in a different sequence. So which is the right one and does it even matter? Many have tried to come up with the sons of Israel names associated with each stone, but I am not convinced any of them are right. I have read at least 3 or 4 possible renditions on the web of who they thought the stones were and they were all different and nobody could tell us why they picked one to be associated to the other. It could be that the names being associated with each of the stones is not important, or it could be that it is still just hidden from our view and we have not found it yet. Here are the stones we found on the Priest’s breastplate listed in the specific Row order given to us by God.
|
Row/Column |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
1 |
Sardius; H124 (3) | Topaz; H6357 (4) | Carbuncle; H1304 (3) |
|
2 |
Emerald; H5306 (4) | Sapphire; H5601 (11) | Diamond; H3095 (3) |
|
3 |
Ligure; H3958 (2) | Agate; H7618 (2) | Amethyst; H306 (2) |
|
4 |
Beryl; H8658 (7) | Onyx; H7718 (11) | Jasper; H3471 (3) |
I have listed the name of the stone from the KJV Bible as well as the Hebrew Strong’s number followed by a parenthesized number of times this specific word is mentioned in the O.T. As you can clearly see 3 stones are only mentioned a total of 2 times in the Bible and only in the description of the Priest’s breastplate in Exodus. This is Row 3 of the list of 12 stones. Next you can see that 4 stones are mentioned in the bible only 3 times, 2 stones are mentioned 4 times, 1 stone is mentioned 7 times and finally 2 stones are mentioned a total of 11 times. That is the makeup of the 12 stones and their frequency of word usage occurrence in the O.T. Hebrew Bible. All this tells me is that 7 stones are only mentioned in the descriptions of the breastplates and then 5 stones have varying references from 1 additional mention to 4 mentions and finally to 8 additional mentions. In reading these references I only saw Jasper mentioned in relation to the throne of God. I then noticed Topaz mentioned as coming from Cush. I did not see any references to any of the tribes of Israel so we still have a major mystery with relating the stones to the individual tribes of Israel. It would appear that God does not mention this in the Bible or it is definitely hidden using a method that God has implemented to conceal the information.
Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
So here we go with the beginning of the enormous mystery puzzle. We know from the above verse in Hebrews that God gives us some valuable information of those things that were given to Moses in the O.T. Law. God specifically tells us that those things that Moses created for God’s temple on the earth were shadows of the heavenly things that already preexisted in heaven. That is very important information. God has a temple in heaven that resembled the temple on the earth created by Moses. This would have to mean that God had a high priest in heaven that also resembled the high priest here on earth. Are you getting it so far? We are now ready to see some more important clues found in Ezekiel 28:13 that seems to describe Lucifer or Satan as the type of or in the role of the high priest in heaven. Satan is described to resemble the role of the high priest on the earth, but with 3 less stones on his covering. Read this verse carefully:
Eze 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
If you go through the list of stones and lookup each of the Strong’s Hebrew words, you discover that each stone listed in this verse is an exact match for a stone found on the Mosaic priest’s breastplate. They are of course listed in a completely different order. Then as you can determine by looking and counting, there are exactly 3 stones less with a total of only 9 stones being listed. So we have to reorder them to see which ones are present and which ones are missing. So not only does Satan have stones in a different order, he is missing a total of 3 stones. By closer comparison you can determine that it is Row 3 of the high priest’s breastplate that is missing from the covering of Satan.
|
Row/Column |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
1 |
Sardius; H124 (3) | Topaz; H6357 (4) | Carbuncle; H1304 (3) |
|
2 |
Emerald; H5306 (4) | Sapphire; H5601 (11) | Diamond; H3095 (3) |
|
3 |
|||
|
4 |
Beryl; H8658 (7) | Onyx; H7718 (11) | Jasper; H3471 (3) |
All of this is just too amazing to be a simple coincidence. If you understand God you will know that God purposely hides information like this for us to discover. Using database concepts, this information would represent a missing record from a file. 
A record always contains related field information that is grouped, organized and associated to form the information in the row. A row would be like the name and address for a customer. Therefore, in database terms, we would have a table that has 4 rows of people’s names and addresses that we know. Each row would represent one person that we know and the information that we want to relate to that person, like their stree address, city, state and phone number. These are just basic database concepts, but they must certainly apply to the puzzle being presented to us by God. God is definitely trying to reveal something to us, but what it is, is the major question of the day? What can we derive from the fact that exactly Row 3 is missing and not Rows 1, 2, or 4? It would appear to me that since Row 3 is missing that it seems to be an indication that something was taken away from Satan and not just simply being added to the high priest on the earth. However, that is not a complete factual reality, since in any spread sheet or database you can add a row anywhere you like. So that is the mystery of the missing row in a nutshell. What is being added to the earthly priest that Satan did not have? Or what is being taken away from Satan that man still has? Since the Bible does not appear to answer the missing row question specifically from Satan’s breastplate, nor the names of the tribes of Israel can be directly tied to each stone, then this forced me to change my perspective and to look in the Bible for alternative related subjects and topics in order to come up with a better understanding for what God is trying to teach us. Sometimes I have learned that if you can’t understand it from one perspective then you better change your perspective to see it differently and this is what I’ll do for the rest of this lesson. I learned that the Bible says God does not change, so the Bible does not change either, it is only our view of the Bible that should be affected. Did you understand what I just said? It was very important!
You see, I believe the Bible clearly reveals to us that the people in the church are a spiritual pattern of the Old Testament Mosaic priests. These O.T. natural Priests were given to us as natural views into the coming spiritual truths and realities found in the New Testament. Let me briefly show you some scriptures in the N.T. that seem to indicate this to us:
1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
As you can see this verse both calls people in the church living stones as well as being a people who are called a “holy priesthood”. I do not think this is an accident that God mentions these two things in one verse. It would appear that there is a definitive association to the stones found within the breastplate of the O.T. priest. In this verse you can clearly see that we in the church are supposed to offer to God a spiritual sacrifice and not a physical one. So the people in the church are the new spiritual priests of God. Could we possibly be replacing Satan the original heavenly priest? If the church is also the spiritual priests of God, what kind of spiritual breastplate are we now wearing? If you noticed I did say a spiritual breastplate and not a physical breastplate. The O.T. breastplate is clearly a symbolic representation of something that we cannot see with our natural eyes.
1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Here is another witness to the fact that the church is called a royal priesthood of God. You see the word “priesthood” comes from a Greek word meaning to “execute the priest’s office”. To do what the priest did physically, but do it now in the spiritual realm for real. We have observed two major verses in the N.T. written to the church of God that tell us we are now God’s spiritual priests, but let’s look at one more for fun:
Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Here is another witness found in the Bible that says the members of the church have been placed into the office of a “priest” unto God. You can clearly see from these three witnesses that the church is directly called priests. So we are at the point now to try to figure out what the breastplate might represent to us as God’s priests.
Eph 6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
As you can clearly see, this verse describes Christians as wearing a “breastplate of righteousness”. This statement is made in the clear context with a description of the armor of God and is starkly contrasted with the O.T. “breastplate of Judgment”. So it is not directly a high priest type of breastplate or is it? It still could be considered very similar. As you recall in the description of the high priests breast plate it was labeled the breastplate of judgment a figurative named title just as our breastplate is stated to also be a figurative described title. The one of judgment is obviously very different than the other that is given to us for righteousness. However, the Bible says that we have been justified and redeemed and therefore we are not under the condemnation or judgment of the law. Since we have been freely given the righteousness of Jesus, I believe that we would be wearing a different type of priest’s covering than the one found in the O.T. law.
1Th 5:8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
I am convinced that the Bible gives us many clues in little pieces that we need to put together correctly. Here we again see another reference to us wearing a breastplate, but this time it is mentioned in conjunction with two new terms called faith and love. Do you realize that faith and love are two of the fruits of the spirit mentioned in the New Testament? Do you also realize that there are 9 direct fruits of the spirit mentioned in this verse in Galatians? I believe the reoccurrence of the number 9 is again more than a simple coincidence.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
So are these 9 fruits being mentioned in a list just a mere coincidence? The only way you know there are nine is by us counting them. Of course the only way you know there were only 9 stones on the breastplate of Satan was to count them also. How many stones did Satan have? You know by now that Satan had only 9 stones. We can logically conclude that since the High priest’s breastplate had 12 stones, 3 more than Satan’s breastplate that God is trying to tell us something very important. I personally believe that the 9 fruits of the spirit in Galatians are missing 3 fruits and here is one of the main reasons that I believe this:
Rev 22:2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
So I believe this verse has some more major clues in it that are applicable to our puzzle solution. This verse clearly mentions the number 12 and this is the same number of stones on the O.T. High Priests breastplate. Then there is a connection of the number 12 to fruit which we discovered this connection when looking at the fruits of the spirit and the breastplate of righteousness found in the N.T. It is also interesting to note another connection found in this verse connecting these 12 fruits to the tree of life. If you have ever read some of my other lessons you know that the tree of life is a clear reference to the people in the church. Here is an example of one of these verses:
Pro 11:30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.
As you should be able to see this verse says that we have “fruit”, “righteousness” and the “tree of life” all mentioned in one verse and there is no way that this is there by chance or accident. In the N.T. the people in the church are clearly those who have been given God’s righteousness. We clearly saw verses that said the breastplate of righteousness was part of our spiritual wardrobe. Then there is this very simple fact that almost all natural fruit grows on trees. You do not plant a fruit seed like an orange seed and get more oranges; you first get a tree and that tree will produce the oranges. So where does spiritual fruit come from? Spiritual fruit must also come from a spiritual tree. I believe these righteous trees are those who have been given eternal life by God.
Pro 15:4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.
We are given another clue to this fruit that we are to produce and this is by our mouth and the words that we speak. This is one of the key reasons that I teach a lot on the importance of your spoken words. There are many verses that I can give you that are related and I will give you a couple of them:
Pro 12:28 In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
Here in this verse we can see a reference to a pathway, righteousness and life and these are all being connected or linked together again. We saw in Revelation 22:2 that the tree of life was in the middle of what? This verse says that the tree of life was found in the middle of the street. Is a street a pathway? I believe it can be. It is often times called a highway, a parkway, a drive or other words in our English language but a way to go is the clear reference being given to us. So we can see in Proverbs 12:28 that the righteous are intended for life and this would imply the ability to produce the 12 kinds of fruit mentioned in Revelation 22:2 on the tree of life. If you study the Bible in the Old Testament, trees are many times used as symbols for people. So a symbolic a group of “trees of life” in Revelation 22 could also be a righteous group of God’s people.
It is also interesting to note that in Revelation 22:2 that there are 12 fruits that are produced every month. How many months are there? In our calendar there are 12 months in a year. So we have two number twelve’s being related together. If you multiply 12 x 12 you get 144 and this is a number that occurs other places in the bible. If you add 12 + 12 you get 24 and this number also appears in the Bible multiple times. So are these coincidences or simply clues to a greater mystery. I think I’ll end this lesson here today, for I do not want to overwhelm you with too many questions to consider all at once. What I want you to do is recognize that there are little clues found in the Bible that are repeated to display hidden information that has meaning and significance. I believe very firmly that the righteous ones are those who are supposed to be producing 12 kinds of fruits of the spirit. What the other 3 fruits are, represents the missing row on the breastplate of righteousness of Christians. This is another mystery of Biblical proportions. But, the patterns and information being given to us is clearly not by accident or chance. What we must do is study to show ourselves approved and continue to ask God to reveal to us the mysteries of the Bible. God Bless!
Understanding the Collapsing Timeline of the End of the World!
(Ver. 1.2) This is Part 1 in a series of advanced Bible Lessons about the signs of the end times. Many people in our world do not understand that we are at the end of the end of our age. A time called the end of the “last days” on earth. The door to this Age of Man’s dominance upon the earth in conjunction with the works of Satan is closing rapidly. Most of the world proceeds in the darkness and grows more evil for they do not know the signs of the time. It is true what the prophet Hosea said “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. No doubt if people only had the right knowledge, they would also be able to see the times of God’s seasons are concluding quickly. However, I heard a TV preacher the other day make a statement that I agreed with 100%. This pastor of a church here in the U.S. prophesied a coming reveal of God’s Word; his statement said every mystery of God will be revealed in the next 2 years. While I do not know if 2 years is the time frame for Christ’s return or not, I believe that there are countless numbers of mysteries in the Bible to be discovered by God’s people and that God will reveal them by His Spirit to His people before Jesus returns. I mean think about it, why would God hide information in His book if it was not going to be revealed? What do we need with mysteries and hidden information from the Bible in heaven? I had a commenter say that it will sure be nice when we get to heaven and God can teach us all the things that we missed out on down here. Why can’t God teach His people the truth, here and now? Do you think that God is incapable of teaching His people what the truth is in the Bible? All it takes is for God to show us some little keys and suddenly the whole book could unfold right before us like a giant puzzle solved. You see when we get to heaven, there will be no enemies up there, no evil, no crime, and no deception and then what will we need with the truth? From my vantage point on the earth, the church needs to know the truth now so that we can become one body in harmony and accord with each other. That means we have a lot to learn in a very fast time frame. If you are interested in learning these secrets of God with me, then get involved with what God is doing in these last remaining days on the earth.
1Th 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
Why did God not have to write about the times and the seasons to these His people? What the Bible does is reveal something that implies we will be able to see these times and seasons and understand that the coming of the Lord is at hand. You can certainly look at the world around us and see many of these things mentioned in the Bible about the end are happening all around us. There have been earthquakes, wars, rumors of wars and many going here and there saying peace, peace! The signs of the times surround us every day. Technology, computers and the internet have made it possible for the Anti-Christ to take control of the world’s finances like never before. The Arab nations are building nuclear weapons and the nation of Israel is in perilous times. There are terrorists and people killing people and people dying all around us. In our calendar year, the seasons are used to determine the times of planting and reaping. God has been planting seeds for the last 2000 years. The knowledge of God has exploded like never before, but there is also a coming time of harvest, where God says that’s it, it is finished! How do you tell people this and not sound crazy in our world today? You sound like a chicken little saying the sky is falling! You come across as a fool, but at least you can be a fool for Christ.
1Th 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
So we have a verse that contradicts the previous verse. This verse says the coming of the Lord will be like a thief in the night. You just never know when a thief will show up. But, what we have here is the same event from two perspectives. Those who know Christ will be able to see the coming times and for those who do not know Christ it will happen suddenly without any warning.
1Th 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
We certainly see everyone today in the world calling for this illusive peace. What they do not understand is who is behind these wars, the spiritual forces that manipulate and control people in doing the evil that they do. This verse is again given in contrast to other verses in the Bible that reveal the church is not appointed to wrath. Sudden destruction is not coming to the church, if you think it is then you are very confused in who wins this spiritual war. Sudden destruction will come upon the evil people in the world who do not want to see the coming of Jesus. The church of Jesus will be taken up and out of this destruction before it happens.
1Th 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Here we have the previous verse to verse conflict resolution given to us very clearly. We the church, are not those who are in the darkness. The destruction is only for those in and of the darkness. Those who walk in the darkness are those who have been blinded not to see the truth of God. These are those who have been deceived into believing lies. These verses in 1 Thessalonians 5 are contrasting the end events from two perspectives, one is light and the other is darkness. Do you understand this?
1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
We again see that the church of God is those who walk in the light of God. Anyone who has light can see what is happening in the world because of the light that God is shining upon us. This is in stark contrast to those in the darkness who cannot perceive the times or the seasons.
1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
God says let us therefore be awake while we are in the light of day. This is a spiritual statement and not a physical statement. People still sleep at night and work during the day physically. But, these natural realities correspond to spiritual realities that we must understand clearly. To watch and to be sober is another contrasting statement to those who like to party during the night and get drunk. These concepts are not that difficult to grasp if you have eyes that see spiritual things.
1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
For God has not appointed us to wrath. I spoke of this verse earlier because I wanted to show you that God is not angry at the church. Wrath is a coming time of punishment for being evil and rejecting the truth. Wrath will never be given to anyone who has been delivered from it by the blood of Jesus. Jesus became sin that we might become the righteousness of God and this makes us saved from the impending doom of the world. The Bible says that we (the church) have been reconciled back to God. That means to be brought back into right relationship with Him. I do not understand how people ignore verses like these in order to teach a mid-tribulation or post-tribulation rapture of the church. The church will not be here during the time of wrath and that means we will be taken out of here very soon. Jesus almost 2000 years ago said this about the times that we are living in:
Rev 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
In being able to recognize the times and seasons, it requires that you understand the Bible and what it teaches on these subjects. If Jesus could make this statement of coming soon almost 2000 years ago, how close do you think that we are today to the return of Jesus? How could Jesus say this and it be a truthful statement? To human perspectives 2000 years is almost an eternity. But, we of course understand that God lives outside of the dimension of time in an eternal self-sustaining mode of existence. God is called the ancient of days in the Bible, so time to God must be completely different than time to us. To man 2000 years is a very long time since man only lives to be a 100 years old, but to God, it is just a yesterday. If I said to you today, “I’ll see you tomorrow”, is that a long time to you? To most people, tomorrow is not a long time. We are simply talking about at the most 48 hours. So when you see Jesus speaking of 2000 years as a short time you must find God’s definition of what time is in order for you to understand the real truth of the Bible. This is called letting the Bible interpret itself:
2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
So by God’s definition of time on the earth, one day can represent a time period of 1000 years to Him. What God is doing is changing our definition to His definition so that we can see things from His perspective. This is one of the most important concepts for correct Bible interpretation that you can find. This definition gives us a reference to time that was hidden in the Bible. When you start analyzing the Bible using this information you can begin to see why Jesus could say that He would see us at the end of the day tomorrow and it be nearly 2000 years on our timeline. Therefore 2000 years would not be a long time in God’s eyes. Seeing things the way God sees them is one of the most important keys to understanding the Bible. Let’s break down this information we just read for a future point of reference:
1000 / 24 = 41.6667 years = 1 God Hour. So One hour in God’s timeline would be just over 41 years of our calendar.
41.6667 / 60 = 0.6944 years = 1 God Minute. One minute to God would be approximately .7 of a calendar year to us.
0.6944 * 365 = 253.47 days = 1 God Minute. One God minute is just over 8 months of our calendar.
253.47 / 60 = 4.2245 days = 1 God Second. 101.388 hours = 1 God Second. 6083.25 seconds = 1 God Second.
While I have not found a reason why these numbers are significant, the concepts behind them are what I am trying to convey. To hear when God tells you to wait a minute, that it could mean wait up to 253 days for the answer. Even God’s Wait a Second, could be over 4 days long. It is a radical shift in our perspective of time concepts. It causes us to come up to a higher dimension of spiritual understanding. It forces us to renew our minds with some new spiritual facts and knowledge. What I am attempting to show you is that many times in the Bible God is defining words differently than we do. Do you understand that any verse in the Bible can change dramatically depending on the definitions of the words found in the verse? If we use man’s definition of the word found in the verse, there is a high probability that we just got it wrong.
By the law of first mention, we must go back to Genesis 1:5 to see the first time the word “Day” is used in the Bible. God goes through a series of 7 days of creation, doing something new every day that is unique to the world that we live in. This is a God week by definition and according to the definition of what a day is it means a period of 7000 years. However, we must also change our perspectives to see what else is hidden in this information. I do not believe that it took God 7000 years to create our world; I believe that God is trying to teach us something else about these days of creation. If you have read my other blogs, you already know that these 7 days of creations are prophetic statements of the history of man on the planet. Every day of the creation account has symbolic meaning of something that transpired in the earth during that millennium. The 7th day is a representative pattern of the coming millennial reign of Christ. This is God’s day of rest upon the earth where we have no enemy to fight or defend against. The first 6 days of creation are days of work for man, where we definitely have a great challenge presented to us by God. Our enemy Satan has come with great fury knowing that his time is very short. So while we do not know the exact day or hour for Christ’s return we can clearly see that the harvest season is fast approaching. There is no way to know how long of time that we have exactly on the planet. Our year 2010 is a corresponding year of 5771 in the Jewish calendar. The Jewish people have supposedly calculated from the time of Adam’s creation to today and they think it has been just under 6000 years by a few hundred years. I think that they are close but that it is much closer to that magic number of 6000 years than we think. There is no way that God is going to wait over 200 years to come back to the earth, people would not survive that long. If I had to guess a number I would say that the Jewish year is closer to 5985 to 5991. But, that is just me pulling numbers out of the air that mean nothing. It is only logical to see that Biblical prophecy is falling into place very rapidly around us. I do not think that the coming of the Lord can wait more than a very few years. If God does wait, then we are in trouble. The world’s economies are declining and the wickedness in the world is increasing at rates that are off the charts. I’m not going to explain the 6 day time line of creation like I have tried in other blogs. So please if you do not understand these concepts go and search my website for additional information on this subject. Using this information let’s look at some Bible verses that certainly apply:
Mat 17:1 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
When you realize that Jesus did nothing by chance or accident, you begin to see important prophetic verses in the Bible with hidden double meanings within them. In this verse it says Jesus went up to a mountain top and took with him Peter, James and John. The symbolic representations in this verse are very clear. If a day is as a thousand years then after 6000 years (6 God Days) of time on the earth Jesus will come to take His church up to be with Him. This is what I see that this verse implies, you of course can believe whatever you like. While on the mountain top Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah. These are also two symbolic representations of those who were dead (Moses) and those who were caught up alive (Elijah) to be with Christ. This whole story in this chapter of Matthew is giving us a prophetic confirmation of God’s timeline on the earth in hidden terminology. I hope and pray that you can see it and how it fits together with other Bible verses.
Mat 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Here Jesus is telling us some more secrets about His impending return. It says that as it was in the days of Noah it will be again in the coming of the Lord. So how was it in the days of Noah? In Noah’s day, the people mocked Noah for building an ark. They laughed because they knew not the impending coming disaster nor could they discern the times or the seasons because they were in darkness. They lacked “knowledge” of the truth and perished because of this lack of knowledge. Jesus says in this chapter of Matthew that they ate and drank and had parties. They married, built houses and went about their ways ignoring the coming disaster. This is a very important lesson for the coming of the end of the age that we are living within. Noah was considered righteous and is a type of the church family of God. Noah knew exactly when the disaster would start and how it would end. Noah was prepared for the disaster, so Noah was saved from the disaster. Noah escaped the wrath of God, and so it will also be with the church. This is a clear pattern of the true church in the world today. These are those who can read the signs of the times and understand the seasons. The Lord’s coming will not come as a thief in the night just like the rain did not come as a thief in the night to Noah. If you are prepared for Christ’s return then you will know and see His return clearly. In the parable of the 10 virgins, there were 5 who were foolishly not prepared and went away for oil. These are types of the people in the world who do not know God. They will not perceive that the time is too short to try to get more oil. While you are away Jesus will come back and those who are ready will go up. This parable is an attempt by God to tell you to get ready now before you realize the time is too close at hand to get more oil. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, do you think that this could be a symbolic indication of the coming 6000 years of Christ’s return? I certainly do. Let’s look at one more verse about the end of time in relation to a historic type:
Luk 17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
I take these verses very literally. When Jesus says the coming of the son of man will come like it happened in the days of Lot, what does that tells us? The righteous were taken out and the destruction began to rain down immediately upon those cities. This again gives us a picture of the pre-tribulation departure of the church. God does not appoint the righteous to His wrath. This verse says those in the earth will be eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building and their consumed focus on these activities will cause them to miss the coming of Jesus.
Joh 2:1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
God gives us little clues in the Bible in vastly spread out verses. Here we have a reference to a real event that occurred during the days of Jesus on the earth, but God uses it to inform us of a spiritual event that is coming. These types of verses are allegorical and they are real events that happened on the earth, but they show us a spiritual reality. After two God days (2000 years) there is coming a wedding feast that will occur in heaven on the third day. While the earth is experiencing the vials of Revelation, the church will be in heaven getting ready for a wedding feast. Verses like these are very interesting and potentially controversial because it appears that I am pulling something out of context to teach a spiritual prophecy. However, God uses this technique throughout the Bible in symbols, types and shadows and allegories. I mean think about it, God could have used any number of days in this verse and it could have been accurate, but God chooses to use 2 days and then Jesus went to a weeding. Do you think this is an accident? I certainly do not!
Joh 4:43 Now after two days he departed thence, and went into Galilee.
Again we see that Jesus could have stayed however many days that he wanted, but it is recorded that Jesus stayed here 2 days and then the departure occurred. Is this another coincidence or is this a prophetic picture of the coming departure of the church? Only you can decide what you believe, it is. I will believe that it is a prophecy.
Joh 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Approximately four times in this chapter, Jesus uses the term the “Last Day” in conjunction with a time of resurrection and new life. What is the last day of the week? The “Last Day” of the week would be to the Jewish people the Sabbath, also called the day of rest. The God Sabbath is also called the Millennial Reign of Christ. We can very clearly see that Jesus is saying that there is coming a God Last Day where some things will change dramatically for us. There are a bunch of verses like this one in the Bible that make much more sense when viewed in the context of the prophetic creation week. When you apply God’s definition correctly you can understand how they are telling us our time on this earth is closing to an end, when we return to reign with Christ on the 7th day.
Joh 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
Wow, there are so many verses that we could go into that give us this repetitive clue of the coming “Last Day” when the feast will come. This of course will be the covenant marriage feast of the Lamb of God to His bride, the church. You must search your Bibles for these little hidden clues and then you will begin to understand them. God uses some very tricky methods of hiding information in the Bible in plain sight.
Joh 12:1 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
Again we see an amazing coincidence of 6 days and then a feast. The Passover was a representative symbolic meal of covenant between God and Israel. This is a pattern of the coming Marriage Supper when the church eats and drinks with Christ. So God could have put any number of days here in this verse but, chooses 6 as being significantly important for us to see. This verse also speaks of being raised from the dead after these 6 days, so that is again too amazing to be an accident. These are just more prophetic pictures of the coming to the end of our current earth age.
So while the Bible does not give us exact dates and times, it gives us enough information to discern the times and seasons that we are living in. I hope that you are beginning to understand the concepts being taught and can see the references to the soon return of Christ. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series you may go to “Part 2“.
Understanding the Symbolic Nature of Genesis 1, 2 & 3! Spiritual Symbols Found in Genesis!
(Ver 1.4) In reading and studying the Book of Genesis I have found that it is essential to look at the first 3 chapters of this book using symbolic spiritual eyeglasses which allow us to see the concealed spiritual meanings that were hidden from the surface only reading that many Christians do. By studying the book of Genesis I have discovered that most of the subjects written about in these three chapters contain natural symbols that convey a much greater and complex spiritual truth. The difficulty comes in rightly dividing what is natural and what is spiritual and then interpreting both of these at the same time correctly. Clearly the book of Genesis and especially the first 3 chapters contain both real naturally created realities and people, but at the same time it contains a vast number of spiritual symbolic references that are intermixed throughout the text in almost every verse. This makes correct Bible interpretation of Genesis infinitely more complex, especially for carnal minded Christians.
1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
I put this verse in this lesson to show you how important rightly dividing the Bible is to correct interpretations. Here God says there are many who teach things in the Bible that are just from man’s own wisdom. You can still find this in churches and on the internet everywhere. But, God says there is a better way, let the Holy Ghost teach you spiritual things and then compare these spiritual things with other spiritual things. Most Bible scholars would certainly agree that this complexity is repeated in other books of the Bible like the prophets and especially the Book of Revelation. Revelation is dominated by symbolic references throughout the entire book and it is widely one of the most controversial books with the most widely dispersed interpretations surrounding it. So symbolism is an added layer of complexity that makes understanding these Bible books with it, much more difficult to comprehend and to understand correctly. For example when God mixes natural fruit with symbolic spiritual fruit in the same chapter this forces us to see what is being discussed by the context and then to use the rest of the Bible to help us interpret the meanings of the spiritual side of the information given. This is called “Comparing Spiritual Things with Spiritual Things” and “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” and we are required to see it correctly or we will remain hopelessly confused. We must therefore, choose to rightly divide the Word of God deciphering or decoding every word between the spiritual definition and the physical definition or we will wrongly divide it and make them all spiritual or all physical references. To make them all spiritual or all natural, we would get most of our interpretations wrong when doing this. So God did this all by a grand design. God purposely hid complex information in the Bible to keep it from Satan and to allow Him to reveal it to us His church in His perfect time. It is the designed process that I call “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight”. So in today’s blog I am going to focus on the symbols recorded in the first three chapters of Genesis and give you a list of the most important ones that I have found. Here is the List of Symbols in Genesis 1, 2 & 3:
|
Symbol |
Description |
Chapter Verse Reference |
| Adam | A real man, but also a symbolic representation of the man Jesus Christ | Genesis 2:18-26; Romans 5:14 |
| Afraid | The symbolic spiritual force of the fear of the consequences of sin and death | Genesis 3:10; Heb 2:15; |
| Ashamed, Not | Symbolic Spiritual Innocence | Genesis 2:25; 1 John 2:28 |
| Cleave | The symbolic covenant of marriage between Christ and the church to be JOINED! | Genesis 2:24; 1 Cor 6:17 |
| Darkness | The spiritual kingdom domain of Satan and those in it | Genesis 1:2; Rom 2:19 |
| Day | Those in the Kingdom of God where the Sun of Righteousness has arisen | Genesis 1:5; Malachi 4:2; 1 Th 5:5; |
| Day | The days of creation were symbolic 1000 years of the history of Man | Genesis 1:5, Genesis 1:8, Genesis 1:13; Genesis 1:19; Genesis 1:23; Genesis 1:31; Genesis 2:2; 2 Peter 3:8 |
| Divided | Symbolic separation of spiritual beings | Genesis 1:4; 1:7; Luke 12:51 |
| Dust | The Symbolic Spiritual ground and the possession of man for 7000 years (7 days) | Genesis 2:7; 3:14; 3:19; |
| East | The Symbolic direction of the rising Spiritual Sun | Genesis 2:14; 3:24; Mat 24:27; |
| Eat | Spiritual enlightenment and understanding either of good or of evil | Genesis 3:6; 3:11-19; 3:22; John 6:51 |
| Firmament | A spiritual division or separation, an expanse or spiritual dimension as a partition. Above the firmament is heaven the throne of God. Below the firmament is the future expanse of Satan’s domain. The air realm represents man’s current position and where Satan currently resides. | Genesis 1:7; |
| Flesh, One | The symbolic covenant of marriage between Christ and the church | Genesis 2:24 |
| Fourth Day, the | The 4000 year appointed time of the coming of Christ into the world | Genesis 1:19 |
| Fruit | That which is produced by a Spiritual Tree either good or evil | Genesis 3:2, 3, 6; James 5:7 |
| Garden | The heart of man, the symbolic soil of the earth where God plants His seeds to grow spiritual fruit | Genesis 2:8; 3:2; 3:10 |
| Greater Light, the (Sun) | The symbolic Jesus, the ruler of the spiritual day Kingdom of Light | Genesis 1:16; Mal 4:2 |
| Hand | Symbolic Spiritual Power | Genesis 3:22 |
| Lesser Light, the (Moon) | Satan the ruler of the darkness of this world; the Prince of the Kingdom of Darkness | Genesis 1:16; Eph 6:12 |
| Light | The God of Creation, God is Light | Genesis 1:3; 1 John 1:5 |
| Meat | The symbolic food of a spiritually mature man | Genesis 1:29-30; Heb 5:12 |
| Naked | The External Shame of Sin also the unclothed spirit of man | Genesis 3:10; 2 Cor 5:3 |
| Night | Those in the spiritual darkness, who stumble and sleep and get drunk in the world; kingdom of Satan | Genesis 1:5; 1:14; 1:16; 1:18; 1 Th 5:7 |
| Rain | The symbolic outpouring of the Spirit of God, the former and the later | Genesis 2:5; James 5:7 |
| Sea(s) | Peoples/Nations of the earth | Genesis 1:10; Rev 17:15; |
| Second Day, the | The Covenant of Abraham to separate God’s people from the other people on the earth | Genesis 1:8; |
| Seed | The symbolic representation of children, words, and several other types of spiritual things | Genesis 1:11-12; 3:15; |
| Serpent, the | Satan the spiritual ruler of the darkness, the deceiver of the nations | Genesis 3:1; Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2 |
| Seventh Day, the | The Millennial Reign of Christ; God’s symbolic Day of Rest | Genesis 2:2; Heb 4:4; Rev 20:6; |
| Sixth Day, the End of the | The prophetic coming into maturity of the church of God before His return. | Genesis 1:26 |
| Skin | The outward clothes of the spirit of man; God later removes this with the circumcision of the heart | Genesis 3:21; Rom 2:29 |
| Third Day, the | God starts planting seeds and expecting fruit to grow in His garden; Moses given the Law | Genesis 1:12 |
| Thorns and Thistles | The Weeds of the Enemy Satan | Genesis 3:18 |
| Tree(s) | Any man who makes a choice to either produce good fruit or evil fruit | Genesis 2:9; 3:8 |
| Tree of Life | Those men who have chosen to receive the Word of God and produce fruit unto righteousness | Genesis 2:9; 3:24 |
| Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil | Those men who have seen good but chosen evil | Genesis 2:9, 3:11; |
| Waters | Symbolic people, the voice of many waters | Genesis 1:6; Rev 17:15; |
| Way, the | Symbolic Spiritual Path to Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom from God | Genesis 3:24 |
| Woman | The symbolic type of the Church who was taken out of Christ | Genesis 2:22-23; 3:15; Eph 5:32 |
These are certainly not every symbolic reference in these three chapters of Genesis; these are just the ones that I have seen and feel are important to know. You of course are welcome to look for others and if you find them please let me know so that I can add them to the list. I will certainly confirm that I do not know everything and I like to learn new things. God teaches me new things almost every day and it is very exciting when He does this. I pray this list will be a helpful tool in your study of the Bible and specifically the book of Genesis. God Bless!
Understanding the Concepts of Deception in the Bible! Righteous vs. Evil Deception! Part 4
(Ver 1.2) Today is Part 4 of a series of very advanced lessons on Understanding Deception in the Bible. We have covered a lot of important information about this subject, so please do not start reading here in the middle of the series, go back and start reading with “Part 1” so that you can better understand what has already been covered in more detail than what I can do today. The church world has widely been taught that Satan is the initiator, instigator, mastermind, leader or distributer of deception in our world and that this deception is always evil. I of course concur with these facts whole heartedly. However, in the last lesson in this series I introduced you to the concept of “Righteous Deception” and I will carry this lesson further today so that you can better understand these new concepts revealed to us in the Bible. What I have discovered by Studying the Bible is that there are several types of deception mentioned in the Bible and some are positive and some are negative. By the Bible definition we can understand that evil deception is when someone comes to you with hurtful or harmful intentions and lies to you to get you to do something that you should not have done. However, I also showed you in the last lesson that the Bible speaks of “Self-Deception” as being a condition where a man or woman has deceived themselves into doing something that they should not have done. You should have gone and looked up the verses that I gave you so that you can better understand this situation so that it does not happen to you. So I gave you several brand new concepts about deception that you should at least be a little bit familiar with by now. According to God’s definitions, a deception in order for it to be a sin must be directed at a person to cause hurt or harm or an expected evil outcome. We clearly saw in Genesis 38 that Tamar used deception for a positive outcome and for the good of God, Judah and the nation of Israel. Tamar was exalted by God for what she did so that she was included in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1. Without Tamar’s intentional deception of Judah there would have been no King David, no Solomon and no Jesus. I know these statements rock your religious boats to no end. I totally warned you in these lessons that I was going to upset you evil deception apple cart so that you would have to see this subject in a new more complex and different way going forward and I hope that you are doing just that.
I’m going to start today’s lesson by giving you another natural example of the use of deception for a good or more positive outcome. Say you are working late at night at a restaurant and about to close up and go home. You hide the majority of your daily money and receipts in the hidden vault in your office and you put the rest of the money in your petty cash drawer. Say you have $5000 in the vault and $500 in the petty cash drawer. Then suddenly an armed robber comes into your business to steal from you. He demands your money or your life so you hand him your petty cash drawer and tell him to go. He asks for more money and you say I gave you money now go. You are clearly attempting to be deceptive while not telling a lie and you convince him to finally leave. You call the cops and they show up and so on. So was what this man did a sin of deception in the eyes of God and the Bible? You see I do not think so, because it matters who are trying to deceive and why. You are not trying to harm this thief you are just trying to keep him from taking everything that you have. This is the way Satan is in the world also. Satan is an evil thief that has come to “kill”, “steal” and “destroy” your life’s work (John 10:10). So how do you handle an evil spiritual thief like Satan if you are God? I believe that sometimes you have to deceive (trick) these evil people into doing the right things. I know there are religious people who are just having fits right now because I implied that God can legally use deception. To deceive someone without sinning requires great wisdom to do and God is the ultimate authority of all wisdom. Why am I giving you this example? I want to show you what the Bible says that God did and then you can better understand this concept of “Righteous Deception” a little better. Read this next Bible verse very, very carefully using your eyes and your brain:
1Co 2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
In this verse it declares a concept that right “knowledge” is the key to doing what is best for you. What we learn is that if we would have known that the highway was closed, we would not have gone that way, for example. The Bible says in Hosea 4:6 that my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. So again knowledge is the key to not being destroyed in the world. Here in this verse, we have an instance of implied active righteous deception being taught to us. The princes of this world are references to Satan and his demonic angels. They are the rulers of this world that God is speaking of. If you look up the Greek word translated as “Prince” it means “ruler”. This verse then tells you that if they had known what was going to happen to them by killing God on a cross, they would not have done it. Do you understand this very complex concept being given? Satan hung Jesus on the cross because he didn’t know what was going to happen and he thought if he killed Jesus this would just get Him off of his planet. It appears to be a clear case of the lack of information from God and wrong assumptions on the part of Satan. This sounds exactly like what Abraham did in Genesis 12, doesn’t it? Abraham withheld information and the king made wrong assumptions and thus the wrong choice. It is very clear that God withheld important information from Satan and as a result Satan did the right things that God needed done. This is really an amazing example of God’s ability to control information in order to get a powerful spiritual being like Satan to do the right thing for God but the wrong thing for himself. You see it was God’s death on the cross that ended His covenant relationship with Satan and the angels forever. Satan is now only in covenant with the humans on the earth, the sons and daughters of Adam. I cover this in other blogs so I cannot repeat everything here. So just understand that the death of God on the cross caused something to happen to Satan that he greatly regrets today. Do you understand how God used deception because He had an evil enemy and how God is justified in using this deception because he was deceiving a deceiver. You can clearly see that this type of deception is a potentially powerful tool when used properly and not for evil. What I am trying to do is to get you to think outside the box and to see that not every deception in the Bible is an evil or a sin. This of course represents a two-edged sword in what I am trying to teach, because there will obviously be some who try to use what I say to justify their evil intentions and only God knows your heart better than you, so you will never get away with using this wrongfully.
So let’s go back to Genesis and look at another example of “Righteous Deception” used for the good of God’s chosen people. In the story of Isaac in Genesis 25-27, Isaac and Rebekah have two twin sons. They however are not identical twins because they look and act completely different. Esau comes out first and becomes the first born in the family who is slated to inherit everything that his father Isaac owns. However, the implication from the birth is that Esau did something underhanded to come out first and Jacob stuck his hand out and caught his brother by the heel. These are clearly symbolic types being given to us of what was going to transpire in the future. So Jacob the “heel catcher” was born second and he is in the natural line to serve his older brother. I’m sure that you are familiar with this story because it is widely taught, but it has probably never been taught in the context of it being a “Righteous Act of Deception”. Jacob’s mother Rebekah comes to him with a plan and here are some of the concerns that Jacob brings up in this chapter of Genesis:
Gen 27:12 My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing.
The mother’s plan was for Jacob to get his father’s blessing by the use of deception. You can clearly see that Jacob is concerned with being labeled a deceiver by his father, so we are definitely talking about a clear case of the act of deception in this story of Genesis. In this story you see that Jacob’s mother comes up with this plan of deception for her husband and two sons. I don’t know why this is the second story concerning the righteous act of deception by a woman. Rebekah tells her son Jacob to go and kill some animals that she can fix his father favorite meal. Then she tells Jacob to go and get some skins to cover his arms, hands and neck with. Why did Rebekah instigate this deception and for what purpose was it done? You might have to go back to chapter 25 to see part of the answer to this question. When the children were still in the womb of Rebekah, she noticed that they were already fighting inside of her. She went to God to find out why and God spoke to her some inside information (literal pun) that was very relevant to this lesson of deception.
Gen 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
God says these are two nations of people and only one will be called by my name. Not good news for one of them, is it? Here we have a story that is very difficult to grasp and accept. Esau is clearly a child of Isaac and the firstborn from him, the rightful heir of all of his father’s wealth. But, God said that the elder firstborn would serve the younger second born. You should understand the concept of “Analogies” from the Bible if you have read my other Bible lessons. This is a concept that a natural real story gives us spiritual information about two spiritual brothers that I just cannot get into today. Just understand that there is more information hidden in this story than is on the surface and then go and dig for it. I will help you and tell you that the younger son is a type of Jesus so now go and figure out who is Jesus’ older brother.
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
So God knew the sons of Rebekah before they were born and God also knew what they would do in this world before they were born. So God let Rebekah in on a secret and this was why she could do what she did and be justified in the eyes of God. So why was Jacob justified in doing what he did in deceiving his father for the blessing?
Gen 25:31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
In Genesis 25 Esau comes home very hungry and not thinking and asks his brother for food. His brother says “sell me your birthright”. The birthright is the right of the firstborn to own everything of his father. So Esau reasons in his mind that unless he eats his birthright will not do him any good and says this:
Gen 25:32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
So then Jacob tells his brother to swear that the birthright will be his.
Gen 25:33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
So you can clearly see that Esau sold his birthright to his brother for a bowl of soup and some bread. Esau also gave his word to his brother and in the eyes of God your word is your legal commitment to do what you have said. If you did not mean it you should not have said it, the Bible says. It could be that Esau was playing Jacob for a fool because he clearly still expects to go and inherit the blessing from his father later in this book of Genesis.
Gen 25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
You can see that God says the man Esau “despised” his own birthright. This Hebrew words means to NOT Esteem or to disdain, scorn. It is the act of a vile person the definition says. This is certainly not a positive confirmation for what Esau has done in the eyes of God. It also gives legal justification for what Rebekah and Jacob did to deceive Isaac for the blessing that now rightfully belonged to Jacob. There is a lot of things to learn from this story, and one thing is that even though Jacob was justified in what he did, the Bible says that God is not mocked whatsoever a man sows that will he also reap. So Jacob planted the seeds of deception and these came up when he was working for Laban for his wife Rachel. Laban deceived Jacob 10 times it says in the Bible changing the terms and conditions of his employment. Jacob thought he was working for 7 years for Rachel and ended up working 14 years for her. So while you can be justified in doing deception, it usually always comes back to bite you later in life. God however, did not abandon his man Jacob and continued to bless him even though Laban was attempting to steal from him and to use him.
So it is interesting to note that Esau was legally the heir of his father Isaac, but God caused this blessing to go to his younger brother Jacob who became the father of the nation of Israel. So we learn that not everyone that came from Abraham can be called Israel, only Jacob’s descendants. This is an example of righteous division or separation. The sons of Esau were not the chosen ones. What we have seen is a clear use of deception initiated by God. God told Rebekah about the sons in her womb before they were born. I do not know if you like everything that the Bible says or not. Many of these types of stories are very difficult for many to accept. I sure if you wanted to you could come up with alternative meanings and interpretations to everything that I just have taught on this subject of deception. But, I hope that you can see who God was dealing with and why deception was used to cause a positive designed result. I think that I will end this lesson here today. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series about deception, please go to “Part 5“.
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
Understanding Spoken Words in the Bible! Elijah’s Words and Prayer for Rain! Part 11
(Ver 1.3) Today is Part 11 of a series of very advanced lessons on Understanding Spoken Words in the Bible. You may have noticed if you read my Bible lessons that I teach a lot on this subject and one reason is that the Bible says a lot about this subject. I figured out that any subject that God emphasizes this much must be an important one for me to learn about and to know. Therefore, I spend a lot of time looking at these verses on this subject and they have shocked me into changing what I say dramatically. If you understand this subject just a little bit you will know this is true for you also. I will warn you that today’s lesson is potentially very advanced and only for mature spiritual Christians. This is because the topics and things said may be hard to swallow for younger immature Christians. So please judge yourself before you continue reading this Bible lesson. If you are not comfortable with controversial topics then please just go read someone else’s blog for today. If you have never studied this series of lessons on Spoken Words, I would strongly suggest that you go back to “Part 1” and start your reading there first.
When you study the Bible, you do not read but 1 chapter in Genesis and you can see that God speaks words in order to create our world that we live in. At least seven times in this chapter of Genesis it says “And God said” and God would say something and then shortly it would come to pass. It is interesting to note and to analyze what God said and then to see who He was speaking it to. Did you ever realize that in Genesis 1 you cannot find where it says that God was ever speaking to anyone in particular? In other words God was not speaking to someone specifically in a conversation like we have them between ourselves. God would speak words directed at no one but a problem that He perceived and then things would change based upon what He said. Therefore, no one had to hear God’s words spoken for them to be effective and to cause something to change. It’s kind of like the old saying if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? According to what the Bible says, the tree heard it even if no one else did. For example, God would look at the darkness that covered the earth and say “Light Be” and then light was. So obviously the darkness heard what God said even though we did not. So we learn from this that your words have the same potential and they do not have to be directed at or heard by anyone in order to effect changes in your personal world. God spoke the answer before the problem and then the answer was made manifest. Read Genesis 1 and see what God says “Let there be light”, “Let there be a firmament”, “Let the waters be divided”, “Let the earth bring forth grass” and on and on. Every one of these cases represents a problem followed by a spoken solution. This is a concept taught in the Bible where God describes as “calling those things that be not as though they were”. Do you understand this concept? If you do not understand this concept you should go and read Roman 4:17 and the surrounding verses to see what God says about this subject of speaking words before you see them happen. The concept of calling for what is not seen is exactly what God did in Genesis 1. God saw there was no light and said there was light and then the light came in. You can see this principle demonstrated in Genesis 1:3, 1:6, 1:9, 1:11, 1:14, 1:20 and 1:24. It is a very powerful lesson from God being given to us. God plainly sets us an example of what we should be following in the world today. Then in Genesis 1:26, God said “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion…”. So if God said this, did this happen like the other 7 times God said? You can clearly see that everything God said in Genesis 1 came to pass exactly like he declared it, so these words spoken about man would be no different. If man was designed by God to be like God, then we would have to be open to operate like God does. We of course do not always have to believe this, but this is usually just because we have not been taught these concepts from the pulpit.
Today’s lesson is concerning prayer and spoken words; their relationship and their essential unified association to each other. It is usually self-evident to most people that prayer should involve speaking words to God. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray like John taught his disciples, Jesus gave them some example words to speak to God. Many times people take this example prayer that some call the “Lord’s Prayer” and just parrot the words back up to God like this is being effective. However, this was not what Jesus was teaching us to do. You can teach any parrot to say these words and that would not be praying at all. God is not stupid; He has heard these words before, so these words are not intended to replace your words that you normally speak. Also, Jesus taught more than one set of verses on the subject of prayer so we must try to put all of them together and then learn from them all. Here is something else that Jesus said about prayer:
Mat 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
As you can see Jesus says for us not to be vain in repeating the same words over and over to God thinking that we will be heard. This verse implies that it matters what we say in prayer. If you pray the Lord’s Prayer repeatedly in your prayer life, are you not being vainly repetitive? So that sounds like a problem to me. Do not use a model prayer as the only basis for what you pray. You may certainly at first use this prayer as a model construction for your prayer and then change it to your own words. The Lord’s Prayer starts with praise to God and the acknowledgment to who God is and then the prayer asks for God’s will to be done in the earth. Finally, the prayer gets to us asking for what we need in our lives and the forgiveness of our sins is one thing that we should ask for. But then you should also understand that this prayer was taught to the disciples before Jesus died on the cross. Therefore, this was a model of an Old Testament prayer to God and not necessarily a New Testament prayer to God. For example, Jesus said to pray that the Kingdom of God be established in the earth; and guess what the Kingdom of God is inside of me right here and right now, so this prayer has been answered, so why would I pray that again? I’m smart enough to know that the Kingdom of God has come inside of me already so I do not need to ask for this to happen again. If God has already fulfilled it, then you do not need to pray for what has already occurred. Do you understand this? You might can pray that the kingdom of God be expanded and grow, but technically speaking Jesus never taught us to pray that sinners would get saved. The only verse that I have found about praying for sinners in the Bible is when Jesus tells His disciples to “Pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest”. This is the salvation principle of God sending sowers, a preacher or worker to speak the truth in love to an unsaved person so that they can hear and believe in Jesus and then be saved. So prayer is an awesome subject to study in the Bible and we will get to more of this subject later. But, today I want to speak on specifically about spoken words in relation to prayer. You cannot technically pray without using words, but we also speak words all day long and how do these words affect what we pray?
I cannot find anywhere in the Bible where God honors silence or silent prayer. In fact when I was studying about angels it would appear that the scripture says if the man would have been silent, the angels would not have been sent. You can read this in Daniel very clearly. Daniel prayed to God and fasted for 21 days until the angel of God finally showed up with the answer to his prayer. So Daniel’s silence would have resulted in no angels being sent, the angel Gabriel told Daniel for your words I was sent (Dan 10:12). This is a problem in many religious circles where they hold a moment of silence for some individual that maybe has just died. This might be considered giving someone respect or honor but your silence is doing no good other than that. What if when Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus and stood before it in a moment of silence and then left? Would Lazarus had been raised from the dead? No, I do not believe that he would have. So we can then see what Jesus did to cause Lazarus to be raised, can’t we? Jesus makes the statement to God, “I thank thee that you have heard me”. Jesus implies something that is very important to our lesson today, and that is God is listening to your words. You then see Jesus speaking to the dead man and calling his name “Lazarus come forth”. Was Jesus calling Lazarus alive with his mouth and the words that just came out? So silence would not have brought the answer to Lazarus. To give honor or respect to someone is probably not a bad thing to do, but it will not change the situation. It is like here in the south when we see a funeral procession going by we normally pull over in our cars and stop out of respect for those who are driving by. This is a common practice in the southern parts of the United States and I believe it promotes an attitude of Christian love towards those who have just lost someone from this world, so I believe it is a positive thing to continue doing even though there are no Bible verses that say to do this.
Jas 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
This is one of my key Bible verses today that introduces the rest of the subject of prayer to come. You can clearly see that God is instructing us to pray and not just for ourselves. This verse ends in the statement that the prayers of a righteous man or woman have great power in them. Because Christians do not believe this, they do not do it. Many times it is a self-image problem; they do not feel like they are righteous enough to ask God to do anything. Fortunately for us it is not our righteousness that we are depending on; if it was we would all be in trouble. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that permits us to come boldly before the throne of God without guilt or shame (Heb 4:16). So here is the next verse that follows this one about your prayer:
Jas 5:17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
So here I go today with the basics on this lesson about prayer and words. As you can read in this verse, God says that Elijah was a man just like one of us. What people should understand is that the people that God uses in the Bible were not special or different or unique in their appearance, characteristics, problems, situations, challenges or life’s little nuances from us today. Too many Christians think in the terms that prophets like Elijah possessed something special that we do not have that allowed him to accomplish great things in the Bible that we simply cannot do. However, that is certainly not what this verse is saying, is it? Elijah according to God and James who is writing this account is said to have prayed to God and this caused it not to rain on the earth for a period of 42 months. This is actually a very interesting statement that God makes to us, since if you have ever read the story of Elijah you can’t find where Elijah ever prayed this in a way that we would call prayer. So what is God trying to teach us from this statement? I believe God is saying sometimes we need to expand our definition of what prayer is.
Jas 5:18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
So here is another verse that says Elijah prayed and God caused it to rain again. We have now seen two verses that said Elijah prayed and God answered the prayers because they were effective. It sounds like to me that this would be a good subject to go back into the Old Testament and see what God says to us about how Elijah accomplished these miracles of no rain and then rain again. You can find this story of Elijah starting in chapter 17 of 1 Kings:
1Ki 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
Here is the beginning of some words that Elijah spoke that almost floored me. This is the exact same Elijah that James wrote about so get that first and foremost into your head. Then realize that this verse is the very first verse in the Bible that mentions the name of Elijah. So therefore, we can conclude that there are no prayers of Elijah to God that are mentioned in the Bible up to this point. So we have a major problem that needs a resolution; either God did not record Elijah’s prayer in the Bible or Elijah did not pray the way that we would consider prayer to be performed. I personally believe the second is true and God gave us the exact information in the Bible that we needed to know to learn about what prayer is and what prayer is not. Remember what Jesus said “Father I thank thee that you heard me”. Do you think that God was listening to the words that Elijah said to Ahab? Let’s reexamine what Elijah says; God tells us that Elijah was speaking to Ahab and Elijah said “The Rain will obey my Words!” I know this was my paraphrase of what he said, but it is very close to exactly what He says to Ahab. I mean did you see it? Elijah had to believe something in order for him to make this kind of statement; the drought had not started yet so these words could be considered to be a prophetic prediction of something that has not occurred. Or as we have seen in Genesis 1, John 11 and Romans 4, it could be that Elijah was calling those things that be not as though they were. We of course know that Elijah was a prophet of God, but remember what James said, the New Testament says Elijah was man just like one of us. In other words what Elijah did, we can do. Wow, I don’t know if you believe that or not, but I do. I know that just blows the minds of religious people to think this way, but I’m just reading the Bible.
In reading this chapter of 1 Kings you can see that God speaks to Elijah and tells him what to do only after he has spoken to Ahab. God tells Elijah to go to a brook where God will sustain him and Elijah goes there and stays until the brook dries up for a lack of rain on the earth. God then tells Elijah to go to a city where a widow woman has been commanded by God to provide for him. The widow is obedient and God blesses her and even when her son dies, the prophet of God raises the child back to life. So God is definitely heavily involved in this chapter of the Bible and this is how this chapter ends:
1Ki 17:24 And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth.
The Widow woman says “The Words of the Lord in your mouth are true”. It is very interesting to see what this woman saw and says. Keep in mind that James said this was a man like us, and then reread this chapter with this in mind, looking for what he says. Are the words that come out of your mouth, can they be considered the truth of God’s Word? The words that you speak, will a stranger woman that you just met see that they are the words of God? Your words that you speak are much more important than you can possibly imagine. I believe your words help to identify you.
1Ki 18:1 And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.
Here is the first time that God tells Elijah to go back to Ahab and tell him that it will rain again. You cannot find where Elijah asked God to do this, can you? This appears to be a God initiated conversation and not Elijah’s prayer for God to send rain, doesn’t it? So how did God tell Elijah this? Was it some loud audible voice from heaven or is this not how God speaks to you? God only spoke to me once in an audible voice so I believe this is not how God normally speaks to His people in the earth. Every other time that God speaks to me it has been as a still small voice in my spirit and I believe this is how God spoke to Elijah in telling him what to do also. Otherwise God is doing something different or something special for Elijah that he doesn’t do for us today and this is not what James told us in the New Testament. It is also special to note and to understand that prayer is not about just you speaking to God. If you are the only one speaking in a prayer conversation with the Almighty then you have a major problem on your hands. You should be quiet enough to let God speak back to you since He is so much smarter than you are. It would be much more valuable to hear what God says at prayer time than for Him to hear what you have to say constantly. Do you understand this concept of listening in prayer? Just pay attention and give God the opportunity to speak, you might be shocked at what He says for you to do.
1Ki 18:41 And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.
In this chapter of 1 Kings, Elijah goes to king Ahab after God told him it was going to rain and makes some more statements that are absolutely faith based words. In this chapter Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a Godly duel of power exhibitions and demonstrations. This was an exhibited display of the confidence that Elijah had in his God’s ability. Why were there 450 prophets of Baal in the camp of Israel? Why did Israel put any of their confidence in these false religions and religious leaders? That is a very good question to consider! In this chapter Elijah calls down the fire of God to consume the sacrifices that were drowned in water first. Keep in mind we have just had a drought of over 3 years long and Elijah is pouring water on his altar. Does this sound like the actions of a man in a drought? Here we see in chapter 17 that Elijah told the king that it will not rain for my words and then in chapter 18 and verse 41 Elijah says that he hears the sound of the abundance of rain. Yet it has not rained a drop in over 3 years. Is this a problem? Or can you see that what Elijah is doing is what God did in Genesis 1? I’m going to ask you this more than once today; are you a man or a woman that is also like Elijah? You should really read James 5 a few hundred times before you answer that question.
1Ki 18:43 And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times.
These lessons found in the life of Elijah are very profound. Elijah told Ahab there was a sound of rain when there was no rain. Then Elijah tells his servant to go and look for the rain and the servant comes back and reports he did not find any rain and Elijah tells him to go and look seven more times. What is Elijah doing? Is there anything that you should learn when faced with a drought in your life?
1Ki 18:44 And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.
So the seventh time the servant went to look to the sea, he comes back to Elijah and tells him that he saw a small cloud coming out of the sea. Do you understand how rain is formed? These are the water cycles of the earth’s evaporation from the seas that forms clouds and then the weather patterns that carries this moisture in the atmosphere to then fall back down to the earth as rain? Here we have Elijah knowing how this weather phenomenon works before there were any modern weather forecasters. What was Elijah doing? Do you remember what Elijah said in 1 Kings 17:1? Elijah told the king that the rain would obey his words. Elijah said that it would not rain for these years until he said it would rain. The prophets of Baal and the things that God did to them were some of the reasons that Elijah could make these claims that God could back his words, but this is the lesson that Elijah and God is trying to teach us today. I believe that this lesson applies to us in the modern world. Elijah said he heard rain when there was not rain then said go and look for the rain until they say a cloud form.
1Ki 18:45 And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel.
So what is God trying to say to us? Elijah said it would not rain and it did not rain, Elijah then said it would rain and it did rain a bunch. I did not see one time in these two chapters of 1 Kings, where it said Elijah prayed for no rain or rain. Only James calls what Elijah did prayer and that is a very profound revelation. I only saw one time where it could be implied that Elijah may have asked God for rain and this was in verse 42:
1Ki 18:42 So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees,
You can clearly see in this verse that Elijah assumed a position of humility and this is associated with an attitude of prayerful inclination towards God. However, I’m going to be really picky and tell you that it does not say Elijah prayed and it does not give us any words of prayer that Elijah said to God. So what do we do with this lack of information? We can assume that Elijah prayed and God thought that this prayer was not important enough to include in the Bible or we can assume that Elijah didn’t pray like we think of prayer and then we have to go back to James and figure out how did James know that Elijah did pray since God does not say he did in 1 Kings? Did James assume like others or did God teach James a greater definition of what prayer was? You also have to understand that God told Elijah that it was going to rain in 1 King 18:1 so why pray for what God has already said will happen. Do you understand this concept? I believe that these two chapters of 1 Kings should expand our definition of what prayer is in the eyes of God. Your words are heard by God and then God uses these to fulfill what you have said. I know that does not go over big with everyone, but I believe this is what God is saying.
So how do you apply this story of Elijah to us today? I believe that it crosses over into many things that we do in many ways. A couple of years ago the region of the country where I lived was going through a drought situation that was becoming significantly greater. Over the course of a few months, the lake levels had dropped lower than they had been since I lived here. Water rationing was mandatory and you could not water you grass or outdoor plants, wash your cars or do things to waste water. It was getting crazy here so I finally decided to do something about it. That sounds pretty arrogant doesn’t it? That statement makes me sound like I am God or something. However, I learned from the story of Elijah the principles given to us from James that I could do what Elijah did. So one day during the drought I looked out at the clear blue sky and started talking to the weather patterns, jet streams, pressure zones and the climatological situations to change in order to bring us rain on my house and city. So did it change overnight? Like the story of Elijah I went out and looked at the sky several times before it finally rained but then the drought was over and it rained a bunch. You see I believed the Word of God was true and that what God said Elijah did, I could do. I never prayed a prayer and asked God to send rain; I only looked out at the problem and spoke to it to change to bring me rain. You of course could say that this was just an amazing coincidence that I did what I did at just the right time before it rained or you can look at the Bible and declare with me that God is not a liar. After over 3 years of no rain Elijah said he heard the sound of an abundance of rain and after a few more days it occurred. So either what happened to Elijah was an amazing coincidence also or you are just stupid and don’t want to see what God is saying in the Bible to us. Here is a verse found in the Bible that directly applies to what we just read about in the life of Elijah:
Mar 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Jesus makes a radical statement here that most religious people readily reject. Jesus says if you speak to a mountain and believe what you say will come to pass, it will happen. So is speaking to rain any different than speaking to a mountain? Are they not both inanimate objects without the ears for hearing? However Jesus clearly implies that they can hear in this verse found in Mark. This is a paradox of Biblical proportions. You see if you are a commander in the army and issue an order you just expect it to be obeyed and carried out. This is the same type of reasoning that Jesus is giving to us in this verse in Mark 11:23. Jesus is implying that the mountain is waiting for an order to obey in order to be moved. If no order is given, then no movement is made. If you speak to it and tell it to go and believe what you say will happen, then Jesus clearly said the order will be carried out. You are not concerned with how it is carried out, only the fact that it happens like you said. Mountains can be symbolic representations of problems in your life, even like a real drought. Can you see how this verse applies to what Elijah said in 1 Kings? Everything that Elijah said was what happened in the earth, because he believed it would happen. Elijah obviously believed in his words and they came to pass just as he had spoken. God called this prayer in James 5 and you should understand this drastically changes what we should be saying in our daily lives. Too many Christians pray and ask God for help and then go around speaking the opposite of what they prayed. It would sound like to me based upon what we learned from Elijah that these words cancel each other out. If you pray for God to help pay your bills and then look at your bills and say I can’t pay you, then you have canceled your prayer out. What we have learned in the story of Elijah is God’s definition of prayer is much greater than our definition of prayer. Your words of prayer could be the words that you speak to a king in the earth and tell him that it will not rain for your words. These are powerful concepts that are being transferred to us from God and if you get a hold of them they will change what comes out of your mouth. So I’ll end this lesson with this question again; Are you like an Elijah? God Bless!
Understanding Symbolic Sheep in the Bible! Are You Once Saved and Always Saved?
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 3 in the series of lesson on the subject Once Saved Always Saved and what others have called unconditional eternal security. If you have not read all of the lessons from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start reading with “Part 1“. Today is a response to a reader’s comment, who thinks that I know nothing about sheep in the Bible among other topics that I may get into later. However, this man wanted to chastise me for not following his steps of hermeneutical Bible study. He claimed that I clearly did not know what I was talking about when I taught on Predestination and Once Saved Always Saved, because He had figured out the magic formula for Bible interpretation. However, this man failed in one minor detail, he gave me no Bible verses for his method of interpretation so therefore I categorically reject his methods completely. You can read from my other Bible lessons how I interpret scriptures based on other scriptures found in the Bible. This is called letting the Bible interpret itself. There are many basic laws of interpretation given to us in the Bible and I am totally guilty of following these the best that I know how to do. So you can find many blogs on my methods of Bible interpretations so go and read them and learn. Any man can invent rules for Bible interpretation and that is the problem with most of them that you find on the internet. The Bible says that no scripture is of any private interpretation and this is what most people are guilty of. Today’s lesson will be an obvious example of how two people can read the same scriptures and get two opposite interpretations and why. You see all you have to do is ignore certain key words in these next verses and you can get the exact same interpretation that he gave me. However, if you try to do it correctly and pay attention to every word you come up with a major difference in perspectives. Here are some of the Bible verses that this man said I do not understand:
Joh 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
Joh 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Joh 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
Joh 10:30 I and my Father are one.
In this chapter of John and John is one of my favorite books of the Bible which I have studied more than any other except maybe Genesis, I find a very interesting set of statements being made. This man said that these verses prove that people are “once saved and always saved” by God and can never lose their salvation because that is just what it says. However, if you look very closely and examine the wording and context that is not what it says at all. Sheep are of course symbolic of people in this chapter. The sheepfold is the symbolic world that we live in. Jesus is of course the Chief Shepherd that is in charge of all of us sheep. These verses start with the statement that “My sheep hear my voice”. So right there we learn the first lesson. Not everyone is “His” sheep. You do not have to qualify the noun “sheep” with the adjective “My” if all sheep can hear His voice. Do you get it? So let me ask you a simple question, are you one of His sheep? How can you tell if you are one of His sheep? Is it just because you say you are? I believe our current President proves that is a lie in his actions every day. Saying you are a Christian does not make you a Christian ever. You might recall in the book of Acts that some men came up to a demon possessed man and said “In the name of Jesus that Paul preaches come out of him”. However, the demons said to them “Paul we know and Jesus we know but who are you” and they made them sorry that they confronted a being more powerful than they were (Act 19:13-15). These were examples of men who were not His sheep, but tried to act like it anyway. So you either are one of His sheep or you are not one of His sheep! What is it that determines this fact? It really is not that complicated, if you can hear His voice then you are, if you do not hear His voice then you are not. So let me ask you this, do you hear His voice? I know for certain that I hear His voice on a daily basis, what can you say about this? So the first thing that you learn is not everyone is His sheep and then only His sheep can hear His voice. So let me ask you this, if someone speaks and you are not paying attention do you ever miss what is said? My wife accuses me of this every now and then. She says something and I am sometimes distracted or not paying attention like I should and I miss what was said. Has this ever happened to you? Just because you can hear does not mean that you heard. This is proved every day in church. People sit in the congregation listening to the preacher and I would guess that only a small handful actually hear what is being said and understand it. So hearing is not the complete answer given here, I believe it takes more than just hearing. You can learn this from the Parable of the Sower when Jesus taught on the 6 types of soil, 3 types of soil produced some fruit and 3 types did not produce any fruit. But, they all heard the same words of the sower who was planting the seeds. So obviously there is much more involved than just hearing. Do you get it?
So the next statement that Jesus makes is “I know them and they follow me”. So if you hear His voice Jesus says “He knows you”. However, then He says “They follow me”. Uh oh? Is that another potential problem? What if they don’t follow Him or His voice? Do sheep ever have a “freewill” choice of whether they follow the Shepherd or ignore the Shepherd’s voice? I mean come on, do people ever lose the right to choose? You see you clearly do still have a choice to make even after becoming one of His sheep. There is a clear implied meaning given to us here in this verse that sheep still have choices to make even after being saved out of this crazy world. I mean come on and think a little bit with your brain! If they choose to follow Jesus they can choose not to follow Jesus also. The only way that this would not be possible is if God tied a rope around the neck of every one of His sheep and then dragged them wherever He went whether they wanted to go or not. That would be forced “predestination” and forced “eternal salvation”. Does God forcibly enforce His will upon all Christians and all people in the world? There are many confused Christians who think that He does. If this is the type of God that you serve then you are highly deceived and very ignorant. God is not forcing any of His sheep to follow Him. If you know anything about being a good shepherd, they always walk ahead of their sheep calling to them and the sheep normally follow them. The sheep are therefore highly trustworthy of their master that He is not going to lead them to the wolves. However, sheep do still have a choice not to follow. Once Jesus told this story found in the Bible that is very relevant to our current subject today about sheep:
Luk 15:4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
Is Jesus talking about sheep in this parable? I don’t think so! Jesus is again using sheep as an example of people. However, it is very clear and self-evident that sheep can wander off and away from the voice of the shepherd that was guiding them. This tells me that Jesus the Great Shepherd is not in complete control of everyone on this planet and what they do. Any sheep at any time has the choice or chance to walk away. Do you get this concept? This is called “FREEWILL”. These are saved people who have walked away from Jesus’ voice and no longer are able to hear it. Do you GET IT? Of course Jesus says any good shepherd will leave the 99 and go and look for the 1 that is LOST! So here we go again. Does this mean the shepherd when He finds this lost sheep drags him kicking and screaming back to the flock by force? If you think it does then you again do not know the loving compassionate merciful God who allows His sheep to do as they will. Sure a sheep could wander off accidently and be totally glad to get back to the safety of the flock and the shepherd. But, still people are not sheep, they are people and they can do what they want, when they want, to who they want at any time. If a sheep wanders off and commits suicide there is no getting that sheep back even if the shepherd wants it back really bad. If while away from the safety of the shepherd a wolf comes and eats that sheep, it is also gone forever. These are basic sheep principles of shepherds and their flocks. People want to think that God is in control of everything, but if this was true and God is the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Almighty, He would have never let one of His sheep get lost in the first place. In this parable, it is clear that a sheep got away and the shepherd did not know about it until He stopped and counted and said I only have 99 and I started with 100 so one got lost. Wow, what do you do with people who ignore what the Bible says for their version of reality? It sure makes it difficult if you can’t see the words that written on the pages, doesn’t it?
Let’s further examine the emphasized subject in verses 28 and 29 of John 10 that we were looking at first. If you can see, then you can understand that both of these verses are about the Power of God vs. the power of Satan. Both of these verses say that God is able to keep those that have chosen to follow Him. Remember that choosing to follow was an important prerequisite to the next two verses. So the next two verses are only applicable if you continue to follow by your freewill choices. As long as you are with the shepherd you are clearly SAFE and no one including Satan can come and force you away. This would be the opposite of forcible salvation; it would be called forcible damnation. If it is illegal for Satan to force you to hell, guess what it would be illegal for God to force you to go to heaven. This MUST be a two way street that goes both ways and the only determining factor which way you go is by your own choice of continuing to follow your faithful Shepherd.
So did we learn anything today? I bet my commenter didn’t hear a thing that I said and that is really a sad state of the world that we live in. My Bible says “Whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not”. It is almost impossible to get a blind man to see. What you must determine is a basic question; do sheep still have any freewill choices to make in the real world after being saved? Can they do what they want rather than do what God says? Before you answer this question you should go and read your Bible and see if there are any people in there who God said not to do this and they ignored it and went and did it anyway. There is Balaam, there is all of natural Israel, there is even Moses who God said speak to the rock and he hit it instead. There are too many examples in the Bible of people disobeying God’s voice. Why did God pick sheep as a type or symbol of people in the world? You should study more about sheep and learn how they are a picture of people. For example, sheep are pretty dumb animals, I have to admit that and that speaks a lot for God’s opinion on what people think in the world. You should be smart enough to first see that God’s intelligence is so far above your intelligence that it is barely comparable to a man vs. a sheep. So having said that your opinion is worthless! What you think about the Bible is totally irrelevant! There is no significance to your thoughts unless they become God’s thoughts. So what have we learned about sheep today?
- People like Sheep are DUMB!
- Sheep still have a free will!
- Not ALL Sheep belong to God!
- Sheep still have to pay attention and understand the words of the Shepherd.
- A Sheep can Get LOST accidently or on purpose!
- God will try to go and find the lost sheep!
- Not every sheep has to follow the Shepherd!
- No one can force a sheep away from His Shepherd as long as it hears and follows.
These are the basics found in these verses about sheep in the Bible. You of course can disagree with what I just said and ignore the facts if you want to. But, please do not write me any more ignorant comments about my lack of understanding of the Bible and go pull the plank out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of mine. God Bless!
If you want to continue reading about Once Saved Always Saved and the Eternal Security subjects you may go to “Part 4“.
Understanding Angels! The Named Angels in the Bible! Part 3
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 3 of a series of lessons on understanding Angels in the Bible. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1”. Today I want to discuss not something new, but a basic concept surrounding angels. This concept states that angels all have names and that these names mean something. Just as people on earth have names which are given to them when they are born, angels also have very specific names that I assume was given to them by God. Of course the Bible does not reveal the names of every angel and since there are an innumerable number of them, I’m glad that it does not. Throughout the Bible you discover that people did not normally just make up their children’s names. These names were given to their children for a reason and it often involved the circumstances surrounding their birth. So we discover that we can learn things about people from looking up the definitions of their names. I believe that this applies to angels also. I do not think that the angels got their names by accident or chance. We are not told but a few names of the angels, but we are told enough to help us to understand these concepts. The Bible says there is nothing new under the sun. I take this to mean that what God has designed in this world were patterns for things that already existed elsewhere or in past times. So what we see and observe in our world are not new things, new ideas or new concepts, but are things that have existed before. That is very hard thing for many people to accept and even Christians today because they have widely been taught that creation happened 6000 years ago and God created the angels and people, heaven and earth and everything else at this time. That would really be good, if that was what the Bible actually said, unfortunately for many Bible teachers it is not; so their teaching produces nothing but points of confusion. What I am going to do today is start in the book of Psalms and show you a verse that informs us that angels have names:
Psa 147:4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.
You may recall that angels were symbolically called “stars” in Revelation 1:20, 12:4 and several other places in the Bible. The stars seen in our heaven symbolically represent these created spiritual beings called angels. They are also according to this verse all “named”. God knows the names of every one of them and this is an amazing feat since there are so many of them. Scientist can only roughly estimate the number of the stars in our universe; there is absolutely no way that they could count them all, since none of our telescopes reach to the ends of the entire universe. So you cannot count what you cannot see. Plus the fact that they estimate the number of stars to be between 10 raised to the 22nd power and 10 raised to the 24th power. Both of those are huge numbers.
Let’s turn to Luke and start to study about a named angel that you have already heard of. This angel reveals some things that we have potentially already discussed as well as some new things to consider. For example, this angel has a name and this is the first time we have discovered that reality. In the first chapter of Luke is the story of Zacharias and his wife. They are older mature people in Israel and Zacharias is a priest for God in the temple. One day while he is in the temple suddenly something happens that he never experienced before:
Luk 1:11 And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
The angel of the Lord suddenly appears within the physical dimension of space and time and Zacharias sees him standing there. We have seen the angel’s ability in the Bible to appear or manifest physically in our world and this is another example of this. Since the context of this verse says that there are many people on the outside of the temple and none of them are said to have seen the angel enter the temple, we can only assume that this angel from God steps out of the spiritual dimension and into the temple at the appropriate exact place and time. So what would be the normal human reaction to something like this?
Luk 1:12 And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
What would be your reaction if you were in a room alone and suddenly a man appears before you out of nowhere? You can certainly understand that this would be troubling to say the least. The natural human reaction would be the emotion of fear. As you study angels many times when they appear to humans, they would have to say to them “fear not”. In other words they were saying “we are not here to do you harm”. This is probably why angels are not sent more often by God. I just don’t think that people could handle the supernatural appearance of a spiritual being, even if they are sent from God.
Luk 1:13 But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.
This angel starts speaking to Zacharias and tells him God has heard his prayers. We can obviously see an example of another angel being sent to the earth in response to words/prayers of a man in this example. I do want to point out that I do not believe that Zacharias prayed for God to send him an angel. I have not found any verses in the Bible that anyone ever prayed for God to send angels to help them. When Jesus was about to be crucified He did say this:
Mat 26:53 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?
So Jesus said He could have prayed to His Father and God could have sent 12 legions of angels to help Him from being crucified. A legion can vary in numbers but generally it would be anywhere from 3600 to 6000 men in a roman legion. So you multiply that by 12 and you get a lot of angels. As you have seen two angels were sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah so that many angels would be a very strong force. It is interesting that Jesus said He could have done this but yet He never did. I would still say from the Bible that God says “Those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”. Meaning we do not pray for guidance by angels. If God chooses to send you an angel, then it is probably for a bigger reason than you want to know right now.
We have not talked about Daniel yet, but God sends him an angel for his prayer also. We can very easily assume God has heard this man Zacharias’ prayers and has sent His messenger with the Words of God for him to hear. The angel continues to tell Zacharias what will happen in the next 3 or 4 verses. He is told that he will have a son and that he will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. He will not eat or drink unclean things and he will lead many people to God. After hearing all of this Zacharias should have been very happy, however he starts to question the angel and basically asks “How do I know this is true?” That was the wrong question to ask the representative of God. Here is the angel’s response:
Luk 1:19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.
The angel in effect says “Who do you think you are talking to?” He then tells us and him his name and his normal daily duties. This is the angel “Gabriel” and he normally stands in heaven in the presence of the Most High God. In other words God the Most High sent one of the highest angels to bring him a personal message concerning his prayers and he wants to question and doubt us? The angel implies “How do you think I knew about your prayers, what are stupid?” Ok, I added some of my thoughts and interpretations to that response, but you can certainly understand why. Zacharias was a priest of God was intimately familiar with the story of Abraham and Sarah and how old they were when they had their promised son Isaac. So why would this old man doubt God’s ability to do what he has already proved that he could do? Sarah was 90 years old when she had Isaac. Age is not a determining factor for God’s ability to answer your prayer. I believe this is what upset the angel more than anything; it was clearly Zacharias unbelief and total lack of faith in God that displeased God.
Luk 1:20 And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.
So the angel gives Zacharias a sign that he was not expecting to happen. Here we have another example of the supernatural power of angels. In Genesis we saw how the angels blinded all of the men that wanted to have sex with them and here the angel tells Zacharias that he would not be able to speak until what was told him came to pass. What was the difference in this story and the story of Abraham? In Genesis God changed Abram’s name to Abraham which meant “Father of Nations”. So God got Abraham to believe what was said to him, but Zacharias did not believe so his mouth was shut. Abraham went around saying to everyone “My name is Abraham”, “I am the father of nations” which was what God said and then he had a son and it happened. Zacharias could have done the same thing if he would have just believed the angel. It is difficult not to talk about words even when you are studying angels because every subject in the Bible overlaps every other subject. Your words and your beliefs have a determining factor to what occurs in your life. Also note that the angel said that the words that he spoke would be fulfilled in the earth. God spoke what was going to happen through an angel in the earth and then it happened. Do you know this is how God works in our world? God sends His words first into the world and only then do they come to pass. We live within a Word Based World system. This is why Gabriel shuts the mouth of Zacharias so that he could not counter the words that were spoken to him with his unbelief. I could say a lot more on this subject, but I’m already off of the main subject of angels so I’ll leave it at that.
So the angel of God was named Gabriel and he had a problem and solved it by making Zacharias dumb. So again we see supernatural powers being exhibited by an angelic being. It is very interesting to note that the name “Gabriel” means “Man of God”. It also has root words meaning a “warrior” and “strength”. We can see from this information that again angels are not trivial beings to be ignored. It is also interesting that they are called “men”. If an angel appears to you and tells you that God has said something, I would suggest that you do not treat it with the same level of unbelief that Zacharias did. If you question the words make sure you ask the right questions. You might recall that when the angel appeared to Mary, she also questioned the words, but said it differently. She asked “how will this be since I know not a man”. That was a valid question and not one of unbelief. She just wanted to know how God was going to do what he said to her. Then after the angel told her how God was going to overshadow her with the Holy Ghost and she would conceive, then Mary said “Be it unto me as you have spoken”. In other words she said “I believe it”! Believing God is one of the most important things that you can ever do in life and this might have been the most important thing that I said in this whole lesson. Let’s talk about Daniel’s experience now:
Dan 10:11 And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.
The angel Gabriel is sent to another man on the earth named Daniel. While it does not name Gabriel directly in this chapter you can see this is who it is by reading Daniel 8:16 and 9:21. Again Gabriel is being sent in answer to a man’s words/prayer. God directs the angel Gabriel to bring Daniel an answer and this story reveals to us that sometimes answers from God take “time”. We like to think that God lives outside of time and that God is omnipotent so He can do anything instantly, but this story proves God can’t do just anything in our world instantly like we would like to think.
Dan 10:12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.
As you can read and see when Daniel prayed the angel was sent by God on the very first day. However, we can learn in this chapter that Daniel has been fasting for 21 days before the angel actually shows up. That is the problem with many religious minded people’s theology. There is a 3 week delay from the time that Daniel prayed, God answered and the answer arrives. Why is that? That is the million dollar question of the day. You see this chapter tells us that the “prince of Persia” withstood the angel Gabriel from coming to Daniel. Persia of course is where modern day Iran is located. But, this is not a human being and it has to be a powerful spiritual being with a spiritual army of resistance to keep another powerful spiritual being from coming from heaven.
Here is the second most important thing that you should learn from today’s lesson. Did you notice what the angel said? The angel said I was sent for your “words”. Uh oh? We’re back to words again. Did you know that angels get assignments based upon your words? If you didn’t know this you just learned something new that is very important. We’ll definitely talk more about this later so let’s keep looking at the name of the new angel in this story.
Dan 10:13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.
So God dispatches Michael another chief angel from heaven to help Gabriel to get to Daniel. So Michael and Gabriel are two chief named angels from God found in the Bible. The name “Michael” has the following meaning in the Hebrew “Who is Like God”. To me that tells me something new about angels. Angels are made in the image and likeness of God like men were. You can of course take this definition two ways I know, you could say it like a question or you can say it like a statement of fact. However we have one angel Gabriel that means “Man of God” and another angel named Michael that means “Who is Like God” and both of these have implications of our descendant Adam described to us in Genesis 1 and 2. So you do not have to believe it like I believe it but, based upon what we have learned I have to conclude that angels were created being before men and that they were made in God’s image first. They are also called a “prince” of God. You will see this is a term of authority and power. They are rulers of some dominion or domain that I have already alluded to in the first lesson. Since they came from heaven we can assume at least that this rule use to be the kingdom of heaven. But, God told us in Gen 1:16 that the Moon and the Stars will rule the night on the fourth day of creation. The Stars definitely symbolize angels. So the fourth day was a symbolic time of when Jesus came to the earth. However at this time of Daniel was before Jesus came to the earth and this prophecy of Genesis had not been fulfilled. I do not know if you understand that statement and I don’t have time to explain it. You are welcome to read my other blogs to see if you can grasp these concepts.
What we have seen is the names of two of God’s angels from heaven mentioned to us in the Bible directly. These are actually the only two angels of God that are directly named that I know of. The other angels mentioned in the Bible were angels of God, but have fallen so they are not God’s anymore and we will look at them briefly:
Isa 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
I believe that Lucifer is the name for Satan before he fell from heaven. I will do a more in-depth study of this spiritual being in a separate lesson. What I do want to point out in this verse is something I find very interesting. Lucifer is again called a son of God in this verse, but it is not a direct named instance. It is more a symbolic name based upon information from other verses in the Bible and it reveals something to us in it that we would not have fully known otherwise. What you surely realize is that God hides information in words using techniques that I describe in other blogs. In 1 John 1:5 we see a verse that says “God is Light”. Then what we learn from this verse in Isaiah is very important if you can accept it. The word “morning” means “early light”. This is a symbolic revelation of God and Satan. We know that God has neither beginning nor any ending and the Bible calls Him the “Ancient of Days”. All of this tells us that God has been around a very, very long time. But, if you think symbolically about a day cycle, when the sun comes up and then sun goes down; God is describing the timeframe of Satan’s creation using these terms of a symbolic day. God is saying Lucifer was a “son of the very early light”. This informs us that Lucifer has been around not as long as God has but so much longer than Adam or the rest of us could ever have imagined. Scientists tell us that the age of our universe is estimated to be in the billions of years. I imagine that Lucifer has been around at the very least that long and probably longer just based upon this simple information. It is important to note that Lucifer is called a son of God like we saw the other angels called in Genesis and Job. It is also important to note the meaning of the name “Lucifer”. The word “Lucifer” means to brightly shine as the morning star. Wow, that is an amazing statement that almost boggles my mind. You see in Revelation 22:16 Jesus says “I am the Bright and Morning Star”. How can both Lucifer and Jesus have the same names? That is of course a very difficult question to answer especially in a blog like this about angels so I will not even attempt to give you an answer to that. What I do want you to do is see the hidden complexity within the Bible and to show you that we have only scratched the surface to what is written there in and what it all means. So far we have seen angels named Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer so let’s continue quickly and look at the other name found in the Bible of angels:
Rev 9:11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
Here in Revelation 9 it speaks of too many things to go through them all. The book of Revelation is a heavily symbolic book of references. Most of this information found here is widely controversial since hardly anyone has been able to agree on what anything means. However, this error is mostly attributable to man’s private interpretations of God’s Word. What I see in this verse is the fact that God is speaking of an angel. This angel has a name and is called “Abaddon” in the Hebrew and “Apollyon” in the Greek. This name means “destroyer” or “destruction”. I am fairly convinced that this is just another name for Satan personally. I believe that Satan is the one that has destroyed kingdoms and laid waste to the earth making it null and void in Genesis 1:2. When I talk about Satan in the next lesson I will try to show you scriptures that seem to indicate Satan is responsible for these things.
So we have seen potentially 4 angels directly named in the Bible. Two Gabriel and Michael are on God’s side and the other two Lucifer and Abaddon are definitely not good angels.
We have learned a few new things in this lesson so let’s review them.
Angel (s):
- Have Names (Luke 1:19, Rev 9:11)
- Names mean something
- Gabriel means “Man of God”
- Michael means “Who is Like God”
- Are called Princes (those who rule under the King) (Daniel 10:13)
- Stand in the Presence of God (Luke 1:19)
- Can make people dumb (Luke 1:20)
- Lucifer was called a son of the early light (Isa 14:12)
- Lucifer means “Bright Morning Star”
- Abaddon means “Destroyer” (Rev 9:11)
- Are sent by God because of the Words of Men on the earth (Daniel 10:12, Luke 1:13)
- Bring messages from God and it matters if you believe them (Luke 1:18-19)
If you would like to continue reading this series you can go to “Part 4“.
Understanding Angels! A Bible Perspective to the Reality of Angels! Part 1
(Ver 1.1) This is “Part 1” in a study series on the subject of “angels” found in the bible from cover to cover. People generally do not believe in things that they have never seen or that they do not have any proof of existence. It is very much like the subject of God who is a Spirit (Jn 4:24) and many people do not believe in Him either. However, the Word of God known as the Bible says a lot about these spiritual beings, we call angels, and it informs us that they definitely are real and that they do certainly exist. The rest of this lesson will cover things found in the Bible about angels that you should know. Who are they, what are they, where did they come from, when did they come into existence, what is their purpose and whatever else God leads us to discuss about them. I personally know people who claim to have seen angels and their descriptions of these creatures are not like the fat little baby angels you see in many picture books or art diagrams. These creatures are generally very strong, large and tall. Their strength is so much greater than the strongest man on the earth that there is no comparison that can be made. In this lesson we will discuss a lot of scriptures and many of them you might or might not already know. However, I will probably say some things that you probably have never heard or thought about before, so you should read the entire lesson series before you pass final judgment. So let’s look at the first occurrence of the Hebrew word “H4397” that is translated as word “angel” in the English KJV Bible. The Strong’s definition for this word is “messenger”. In the ancient Hebrew lexicon this word is defined as “one who walks for another”. That appears to define one of the primary roles of angels in simple terms. If we search the Bible, we will find that the first direct mention of this word is found in verse 7 of Genesis 16:
Gen 16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.
The Hebrew word translated as “angel” is used 213 times in the O.T. so that is a lot of scriptures to read and learn from. But that is not all of the references that can be found in the Old Testament. This is because these beings go by many other names, titles, descriptions, symbols, etc. For example, the first time I noticed a reference for angels was in Genesis 1:16 as the mention of “stars”. This symbol for angels occurs especially in Revelation 12:4 where the tail of the dragon sweeps 1/3 of the stars from the heaven. Most wise Bible scholars agree these stars are references to angels.
There are at least two references to angels in Genesis 3. In verse 1, Satan is referred to as a symbolic “serpent”. Most should know this is the fallen angel Lucifer, but we will hpefully go into this more later. Then in verse 24 of Genesis 3, we find God placing “Cherubim” with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life. This is a speciality ranking order of that angels that appear to have a different assignment other than being a “messenger” class of God’s angelic creation. We will discover that God is a very organized creator. There will be angels of differing ranks and responsilbities.
All of this introduction information tells us that angels were widely active in the O.T. times and that these creatures are still implied to be active today based upon what we will find the book of Revelation described future. While not every occurrence is translated as “angel” of the Hebrew word, there are enough that are this way that I cannot mention them all.
As we learned, the word “angel” means “messenger” in the Hebrew; they are spiritual beings that are normally sent from God to deliver a message to man. So, an angel could be viewed as a “Word carrier”. You could also say a “Word courier” or someone who delivers God’s Words to the people on the earth. You could compare angels to an earthly company like “Fedex” who delivers messages around the world, but of course angels are much more than that as we will find out. It is interesting to note two things found in this verse. First is that God qualifies the word “angel” with “of the Lord”. Meaning there are other types of angels that are not “of the Lord”. We will discover more about this shortly, but note that God claims some angels to be His and others that are clearly not His. Later we will also see that within the organization of angels, there exist ranks, classes and orders.
The next thing that is interesting to see in this verse is the Hebrew Word translated as “found” in this verse. This word does not mean the angel had to search for Hagar to finally locater her. According to Strong’s this word means “to come forth”, “to appear” or “exist”. Did you know that you cannot normally see angels in the world, but that this does not mean they do not exist around us at all times? It is critical to note that this “angel of the Lord” came forth and appeared in the natural realm so that Hagar could see him and hear him with her physical eyes and ears.
What we will learn soon are that Angels are normally not visible, probably because they were created by God on a higher frequency of movement/vibration. All physical substance contains vibration frequencies. Some are more easily seen, and some are impossible to see with the unaided eye. But according to this verse and some other verses that we will look at later, God may cause or permit some angels to slow their spiritual frequency so that it allows them to become visible in the natural realm. This means that angels can be visible at times or be invisible at other times. How they do this, and it is accomplished, I have no idea?
There are many details in the Bible that we are not informed of directly and this is one of them. We have to assume that they have some power or ability that allows them to do this. You can read further in this chapter and also see that this angel of the Lord brings Hagar a message from God, and he informs her of what will happen to her and her son Ishmael in the future. God who sees the end from the beginning can tell you this information, but this is not the normal way that God does things most of the time; I believe that this is an exception to the way God does things.
So, we have just looked at the first direct reference in the Bible about angels, however this is not the first time they are mentioned in the Bible so we will back up in Genesis and read some new very important verses about angels. What you must realize when reading and studying the Bible, is that God calls the same things in the Bible by multiple names, titles, descriptions and each of these reveal new qualities or features of that person or object being referenced. So, let’s read a verse that reveals angels to us in a totally brand-new way:
Gen 6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
God starts this chapter by informing us that the children of Adam and Eve began to multiply upon the face of the earth. There were both males and females born to them and then these children married and had more children and thus continued the multiplication of the earth’s population. This is of course what God told Adam and Eve to do; to be fruitful and multiply, and to replenish the earth’s population. So, they were being obedient in this part of God’s commandments, I wonder why? Now we are going to get into the part about angels, for the preceding verse was put there to set up the next very important verse:
Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
In the next verse in the Bible, we learn some very valuable information about angels. I’ll start by giving you the time frame for this information. These verses are occurring within the first 1000 years of human history. Since Adam lived to be over 900 years old, he must have come close to witnessing the beginnings of what was taking place on the earth during these verses. The very next thing that you should recognize is that angels are called “sons of God”. We know that Jesus was the Son of God, but notice angels are also called “sons of God. It is the same designation of title, but in an entirely different context. However, we know Jesus was God, but angels were never God. We know in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 that Lucifer was a created being. We also learn Lucifer was “anointed” by the Spirit of God. This would appear to indicate angles to be very similar to humans.
Notice this fact that the Bible calls us (the church) “sons of God” also (1 Jo 3:2). Why is this? This is directly attributable because God is called our “Father”. In Hebrews 12:9 God is called the Father of spirits. Angels are definitely spirit beings and people are spirit beings also, so God qualifies to be Father of both.
The next important thing to recognize about angels is that they can manifest themselves physically in this world as we saw with Hagar. But Genesis 6 provides greater details. It appears that angels can appear in the same form apparently as human males on the earth with the same sexual reproductive equipment. Some try to explain that these “sons of Gods’ are not angels, but you can see that they are by other verses in the Bible. This term “sons of God” is used only a very few times in the O.T. Other than twice in Genesis 6, the term “sons of God” can be found only three times in the book of Job when Satan appears before God and the “sons of God” come with him. Most knowledgeable Bible scholars will agree that this reference to “sons of God” is speaking of angels also.
It is very apparent in this verse that angels have physical bodies as well as spiritual bodies. I still believe this is just one body that is able to transition to slower frequencies that are visible in the created natural realm. However, angels are clearly not mortal like sinful fallen humans. Even angels that have sinned like Lucifer travel from the earth realm to the heavenly realm daily (Rev 12:10) I believe from what I have read in the Bible that angels are spiritual beings that are capable of traveling between the earth and heaven where the throne of God is located at their own will. I also believe that these angels can manifest themselves in a physical form on this earth when given a divine assignment. But Genesis 6 is an example of unlawful angelic manifestation in the physical realm as we will learn soon.
So, this verse in Genesis 6 says the angels of God looked at the women on the earth and thought they were “beautiful” and they took them for their wives and as we continue reading this caused a perverted race of human and angelic beings to come to be in the earth. It is interesting to note that it does not sound like these women had much choice in this matter. To me it sounds like a victory of the spoils of war type of mentality that came upon the angels. They clearly thought they had a right to these women. Knowing the strength and power of angels we can understand why. Read this next verse:
Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
So, this is a very hard saying indeed. One that is truly difficult to comprehend. The “sons of God” are said to “come in unto” the daughters of men. This is a very interesting concept being given to us by God. It is spoken of in the terms of Noah “entering into” the ark (Gen 6:19). This means God views the woman’s sexual organ as a door into her body. In fact, it is designed by God as a two-way door; a man or angel enters in, and babies come out. These exact same words are used in Genesis 16:2 when Sarah tells Abraham “go in unto my maid” so that I may have children of her”. We can clearly see that this is natural sex using God’s perspective. So, we know that the angels (the sons of God) had physical sex with women on the earth and they created a race of giants.
I wonder sometimes, if there are male angels which clearly there are, do female angels exist? That is a question that I do not know the direct answer to yet. I do not ever recall reading any description of an angel in the Bible that resembled a female. But the Bible says that there are an innumerable number of these creatures in heaven, so we do not know everything, do we?
From my Bible studies I have to conclude that there are female angels but the only proof that I have found so far, is that the Bible says Heaven existed first and it is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb 12:22) and this city seems to be a pattern of the one that God created on the earth that I call the “earthly Jerusalem”. If the earthly Jerusalem has females, I can only conclude logically that this was a repeated pattern of the original heavenly city Jerusalem also. So, in my opinion there has to be female angels, but I do not yet have a direct Bible verse for that yet, so you do not have to accept it.
Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
So where did all of these giants come from that were in the earth? They had to come from the sexual union of Adam’s daughters (female descendants) and the angels (sons of God). It is very apparent to me that this union between God’s new creation and the angels was an illegal sinful act and a perversion of creation, that God would have to do something about. I can see two potential reasons for this union by angelic beings with humans. It appears to be motivated by their hatred of God and humans, using their willful and intentional act of rebellion to try to destroy God’s new creation. Some can try to say that Satan and the angels were attempting to pervert the bloodline of man, and this is the only reason for what they did. It is very easy to assume or jump to the conclusion that they were in effect attempting to eliminate the pure blood line for Christ to come into the world. However, I’m not convinced that Satan or any of the angels knew Jesus (God in the flesh) was coming into the world at that time. Remember there were no Bibles written when all of this was taking place. Moses wrote about this many years later for the first time.
So ,their motivation for taking human women could have been just a conquest or sexual desire and the fact that they thought and believed that they could get away with it. Angels, Satan and demons are not “all knowing” beings and God has not yet prophesied the Messiah to come in writing at this point of human time. It is true that the plan of God was already in place before the foundation of our world. However, there is no written word, no recorded law of God, no divine prophets speaking the word in the earth other than Enoch, that I know of. We do know that there were a few statements of God being spoken directly t Satan, Adam and Eve about the seed of the woman bruising the head of the serpent. And that is certainly motivational information that Satan knew someone was coming, because what is the seed of the woman? So, unless Satan understood what God was saying about the seed of the woman, how would Satan know to start corrupting this bloodline? We can assume that Satan understood the words of God and that is why the angels did what they did to the women on the earth, but I have no verses to confirm either of these motivations at this time.
In this same chapter of Genesis is the beginning of the story of Noah. I do not believe that this was just a coincidence. I believe that Noah was chosen by God to preserve the bloodline and the seed of Adam. God decided that He must intervene into this perversion by wiping out the human race with a universal flood. God selects Noah and his 3 sons as those who would preserve the seed of Adam. Looking at the genealogy of Jesus given to us in Luke 3, God shows us that Jesus mother Mary lineage goes all the way back to Adam through Noah and Shem who have preserved God’s plan. In other words, there are no angels in the line that Jesus came from. So, what happened to the angels that sinned and took the women of the earth as their wives? We are actually given a clue to this event in the N.T. when Peter writes the following:
2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
God tells us that the angels who sinned were forcibly thrown into hell and bound with “chains of darkness”. It is interesting to note that this verse informs us something very important for you to understand. Angels, demons, and Satan have never been to hell, do not want to go to hell and are trying everything in their power to stay out of hell. Hell is not a good place that anyone that is halfway normal wants to be. Too many people think that Hell is Satan’s dominion or kingdom, but you can clearly read in Revelation that even Satan has to be forcibly thrown into this place. So, Satan and demons are not normal people, but they do not want to be in hell any more than I do. Think about it, Satan was used to walking streets of gold in heaven why would he want to go to hell? Did you notice that this verse said that these angels who sinned were cast into hell and chained so that they could not leave? Does that sound like they wanted to be there, it does not! The sin of the angels is not directly named in this verse found in 2nd Peter, but the next verse starts talking about Noah so we can clearly assume that the sin was having sex with the natural women on the earth when they clearly should not have in Genesis 6. It is not rocket science to read Genesis 6 and 2 Peter 2 and figure this out.
So here we have Genesis 6 the first occurrence or mention of angels in the Bible, or is it? You see I believe that the first mention of angels in the Bible is a symbolic occurrence way before this in the first chapter of Genesis. The first two chapters of Genesis is the account of the creation of our world. Within the first chapter of Genesis is a prophetic timeline of the entire history of mankind on the earth. If you do not understand that statement, you should read some of my other blogs on the subject. God uses symbolism in the first chapter from the things that are mentioned, and these things occur in a very specific ordered timeline that reveals a lot of great information to us. I believe the first reference to angels occurs in verse 16 of Genesis 1:
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.
Where are the angels you ask? That is the tricky part of the mysteries within the Bible; God has hidden significant information within verses that we do not understand until He reveals them to us. In this verse God speaks of three heavenly objects found in our sky. Did you notice I said “Heavenly”? Where is God’s throne? God’s throne is in “Heaven”. So, we have three natural symbols that convey spiritual beings and meanings. I will not discuss the sun or the moon in this lesson, if you need to know who these objects represent you should go read some of my other lessons. However, the “stars” are innumerable in our night sky. That is a key word that describes the angels in heaven.
Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
God tells us in Hebrews that Heaven contains an innumerable number of angels. This means that God only knows the number of them, and we just do not have the time to count them all. In other words, the number of angels is not an infinite number; it is just a very big number. So here is the reason that I bring “stars” into today’s lesson. If you read later in the Bible in Revelation, you will see how important it is note:
Rev 12:4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
As you can clearly see the tail of the symbolic dragon who is revealed to be Satan causes a 1/3 part of the stars of heaven to fall to the earth. These are not real stars in our night sky; these are only symbolic stars that represent angels. In the Bible “stars” many times represents angels symbolically. This is definitely true in Genesis 1 and Revelation 12 and many other places also. In this verse of Revelation, it clearly tells us that the number of the angels is not an infinite number because a specific fraction 1/3 of them is fallen from heaven to the earth. If you can divide a number by 3 you have to know what that number is that is being reduced. Again, this is just basic logic and the laws of mathematics.
This has been a basic introduction to the subject of angels using the Bible. I have only speculated about one thing and that is I believe that there must be female angels but that I have not found a direct Bible verse to prove that. The other facts in this lesson definitely are scripture-based teachings found in the Bible. We have learned that there are many angels that exist, in fact more than we can count, however not as many as God can count. We have learned that some of these angels do not belong to God anymore. Those that are faithful to God are numbered in terms of 2/3 of the total population of angels. The other 1/3 of the angels we are told are cast down to the earth. We also learned from Peter’s writings that some angels have already been cast into hell for creating a perverted race of beings in an attempt to corrupt the seed of Adam. So we have seen two witnesses so far that say that angels can manifest themselves in physical forms in our world. That is a very important fact to keep in mind. Here is another witness to this fact:
Heb 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
I’ll end today’s lesson with this thought, God says for us to treat strangers like they could be a heavenly representative from God. It is very clear to me that God is saying you never know who you are entertaining and that they could potentially have a message for you from God. I base this on the fact that I believe that an angel’s number one assignment is to be a messenger of God since that is what the name “angel” means. We will discuss more scriptures about angels in my next lesson and hopefully see what else the Bible says that they can do. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading this series about angels, you can go to “Part 2“.
Understanding Hard Sayings in the Bible! Eat My Flesh and Drink My Blood!
(Ver 1.1) This is “Part 4” in a series of advanced Christian lessons on “Understanding Hard Sayings” found in the Bible. This lesson today is not a new subject for me to teach on, for I have covered parts of this topic of hard sayings in at least one other lesson. But, I want to back up today and introduce you to the general concept of “Hard Sayings” found in the Bible before I teach any more about them. The Bible contains many sayings that are very difficult for people to accept, so in many Christian churches they simply ignore them. You see I did not invent the term “Hard Sayings”, it came from a teaching that Jesus directly gave to His disciples and in doing this, Jesus taught us that the Bible contains many “Hard Sayings” within it. There are other Christian books and authors on the market that are available with this title about “Hard Sayings” in the Bible. I have not read them, but some of them must be good. What I want you to realize is today’s lessons came directly from God and the Bible and not from the teachings of another man. So what is a hard saying? A Hard Saying can be described as any words or verses that are very difficult to understand or to accept because of what is being taught or stated within them. Many times hard sayings in the Bible are natural controversial subjects which have a hidden spiritual message that is being conveyed. Jesus actually gives us the classic difficult or hard saying Himself in the Gospels and in doing so teaches us some very significant things about this subject that we should all learn. Here is what the disciples said about the lesson that Jesus gave to them:
Joh 6:60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
As you can see the disciples listening to the words of Jesus said that this teaching was very “hard sayings” to accept and they asked “who could hear them”. They are in effect saying the words of Jesus are very difficult to believe, comprehend, accept, grasp or even understand. What were these words that Jesus was teaching on that were called “hard sayings” by His followers? I mean if His followers had trouble accepting them, what about us? What made the words of Jesus so difficult to grasp for these inner circle of disciples? I guess we should start by reading what Jesus was teaching about that the disciples called “Hard Sayings”.
Joh 6:53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
These are truly very “Hard Sayings”. If you try to take these words literally you will attempt to say that Jesus was teaching cannibalism. However, one of the key elements to correct Bible interpretation is knowing when something is symbolic and when something should be taken literally. . This is something that is not always as easy as you would like it to be. Symbolism is a key element used throughout the Bible to conceal and reveal spiritual information to us His disciples. Jesus is speaking symbolically about spiritual things in this verse and we will need to explore several other Bible verses to get the correct interpretation to these symbols. But, this verse is the prime example of how the natural mind of man can get easily confused when reading the Bible. The Bible says this about the natural mind of man:
Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
What is a carnal mind? A carnal mind is one that thinks 100% naturally. To apply natural things to a spiritual book is said to be an enemy of God. I see blogs on the internet about Bible studies and they are clearly the enemies to God. They are applying human logic and reasoning to explain away the true spiritual meanings and that is a major problem. So the important lesson from this verse is for us not to think like men, but to renew our minds and change to think like God. God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thought are not our thoughts, but that does not mean we cannot come up to God’s way of thinking. It only means that we do not know how to do this until we learn it from God. God did not give us a book that we could not understand ever. He only wants us to change in order to see the real truth. This change involves a higher level of spiritual thought and hopefully you are growing in this area.
What we discover from Jesus’ statement are that two major components are being spoken of. These are the “Flesh” of Jesus and the “Blood” of Jesus. Then we are instructed to eat and drink these two elements. I purposely chose the word “elements” because many Christians know these are symbolic representations for our communion services where we take bread and wine and partake of the Lord’s body and blood. Christians do this as a symbolic representation of a greater spiritual truth that I will discuss in more depth today. Jesus actually taught us some very profound things while partaking of the “Passover” meal with His disciples. Jesus breaks the unleavened bread of Passover and says “this is my body” eat. Then Jesus takes the cup of the covenant and says this is my “blood” drink. Jesus in doing this was not saying this is my literal body and blood; he again was just using symbols to convey spiritual meanings.
In the Old Testament Psalms, it says “Taste and see that the Lord is Good” (Ps 34:8). So how do you taste anything naturally? In order to taste something you usually put that something in your mouth and then swallow it, if it is good or spit it out if it is bad. God appears to be using more symbolism in this verse of Psalms. We know that God is a Spirit (John 4:24). How do you then taste a Spirit and see if He is good? For that matter how does the real you, the spirit inside your body taste the Lord and see if He is good? That is exactly why Jesus uses these natural things to help you to understand the spiritual things that you have no experience with before you are saved. You have plenty of natural experience with eating if you are a healthy human being. Jesus chose to teach us using these natural things to give us a view into the spiritual things that we do not see. These things obviously have to be similar in characteristics even if they are totally different from comparing natural to spiritual things. God using His vast intelligence created natural things for us to get glimpses into spiritual things. So Jesus is saying in order for you to be healthy spiritually you must eat my flesh and drink my blood and in doing this you will have spiritual life. Our problem right now is we just don’t know what this means and that is where we are going now. I will explain the symbols given to us by Jesus to help you to understand these spiritual things.
What is the “body” of Jesus Christ made of? Where did the body of Jesus Christ come from? These are two key questions to discovering the true meaning of what Jesus was teaching when He taught us to eat His flesh. I will start this lesson with a description of the flesh of Jesus from the book of John:
Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
You can very clearly see that God tells us that His Word became “Flesh” and walked among us. In fact, if you backup to verse one in this chapter, you find that it says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. You cannot separate God from His Word in this verse. God and His Word are “One” in the same. This is one of the reasons why it is impossible for God to lie. God is saying that He became Flesh by sending His Word to join or unite with the egg of the virgin woman Mary. God’s Word became the spiritual and natural Seed that became the flesh that was crucified on the cross. Do you remember when the angel told Mary that the Holy Spirit would “overshadow” her and that she would become pregnant? What was Mary’s response to the Words of God sent through an angel? She said “Be it unto me according to thy Word” (Luke 1:38). The angel tells Mary that God will “overshadow” her. This term means to supernaturally envelop. Mary could have said “I don’t believe that” and God would have been forced to find another woman. But, Mary says “It will be as you have spoken”. So the Words of God were accepted into the spirit of the woman Mary and she believed them and then the Holy Spirit came upon her to conceive the child Jesus. God sent His Word to a woman to become Flesh and this is why Jesus was speaking to the disciples that you must eat my flesh. The flesh of Jesus was the “Word of God” made manifest in this world. The Flesh of Jesus was the Word of God Visible to your natural eyes. This was what Jesus was trying to teach us using these natural symbols that exist in the world. Of course at this time when Jesus taught this, the disciples lacked the keys to the knowledge to understand this truth and therefore this was a “hard saying” for them to accept. We still have this problem in the body of Christ even today. We have many Christians who do not accept things because they do not understand them. For example, speaking in tongues is a prime example of this. Because some do not understand it they criticize it and even teach against it. That is a very foolish thing to do. God excuses your ignorance for a while then it may come time for judgment when you attack your brother. I would dare not teach against anything that I do not fully understand to the best of my ability. What I have hopefully shown you is that the Flesh of Jesus is the Word of God so let’s look at the blood of Jesus and what this represents.
Jesus was not teaching you that you should drink His actual blood; there are laws in the O.T. that say that you should not eat meat with the blood still in it. So Jesus has to be speaking figuratively or symbolically. So what is the “Blood of Jesus”? What does the Blood of Jesus represent symbolically? These are another two questions that are critical to understand if you want to understand what Jesus was teaching when He says to “drink His Blood”. We know from the Bible that it is the Blood of Christ that has paid the price for our sins (Heb 10, Rev 1:5). But, what made the blood of Jesus of sufficient value to accomplish this and not some innocent sinless animal like a real lamb? A real lamb has no sin and it certainly has blood. God told Israel in the Old Testament to sacrifice these animals as a type or a pattern for the real “Lamb of God” who was to come. Jesus Christ is called the “Lamb” several times in the N.T. (Rev 21:9, 21:14, 21:22, 21:23, 21:27 to name a few). Here is another verse that speaks about Jesus being the lamb of God:
1Pe 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
This verse informs us that the Jesus was our sinless Lamb and that His blood was precious. What made Jesus’ blood precious? To be precious means to be very valuable. Anything that is very valuable costs a lot. The Blood of Jesus is said to be a “Mighty Cost Paid” for our sins. So what made the blood of Jesus more valuable than that of a natural lamb? Isn’t blood just blood? That is the million dollar question for the day and if you can answer that question you will understand many things about the Bible that are also hard to accept. Let’s look at a clue that God gives us to this answer in the O.T.:
Lev 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
So here is a clue to the answer to the million dollar question. God tells us that the “Life” of the flesh is in the “blood”. Without blood your flesh has no life. People know this fact fairly well in our world. If you are injured badly and bleed excessively, you will die. So no blood means no life. This of course is a very interesting paradox being given to us. It would appear that after Jesus was raised from the dead that His “blood” was no longer necessary for His continued bodily functions to operate and to exist; after all most of His blood spilled out onto the ground on the hill of Golgotha while hanging on the cross. Then after His resurrection Jesus told the Mary Magdeline not to touch Him (John 20:17) until He went to heaven to present His remaining blood before God’s real temple in heaven (Heb 9:12). After Jesus returned to earth from heaven it was OK, to touch Him, because He told Thomas to “touch me, a spirit does not have flesh and bone” (Luke 24:39). Notice that Jesus never mentions His blood again, why is that? So I do not know if the resurrected Spiritual Body of Jesus has blood in it today or not. It is an interesting question to consider. After Jesus was resurrected he ate food with His disciples, but yet could walk through walls and appear in a locked room. So what will our resurrected body be like? I can only guess it will be like Jesus’ body. I think that I got off the main subject so I’ll continue with what the Blood represents now.
The Life of the Flesh revelation that we just read about in Leviticus 17:11, we now know that the blood represents Life. We can now ask, whose Life was it in the body of Jesus Christ? We know from the Bible that it was “God’s” life that was in the body of Jesus (Heb 10:5). So when they crucified Jesus the man, they crucified God. God gave us His life in exchange to buy our lives. That was an awesome display of a loving God. No one else qualified to pay the price for our salvation. No one else had the sufficient sinless qualities. No one else could pay the price of such great value that was necessary for our redemption so God came Himself and did what we could not do. I do not know about you, but I am extremely thankful that He did this.
1Jn 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
The Bible is a highly complex book of spiritual information and putting it together correctly is one of our greatest challenges. If God who had no beginning or ending, could come to the earth and experience pain, suffering and death for our benefit then who are we to question was this necessary. If God did not think it was necessary He would have done something else. God experiences death for a reason and you should be smart enough to know that it was just not for our benefit alone, but also for His benefit. God is smart enough to multi-task like no one else that I have ever known. God can accomplish many things with one designed act of love and mercy. So if you want to think that God came only to die for your sins, you can think that and be wrong. Death is a legal separating force for covenants. Do you understand why God had to break covenant with Satan? First, you probably did not realize that God was in covenant with Satan, but this is a Bible fact if you look for it. I guess I’ll get back to my real subject today about flesh of God and the Blood of God. In 1 John 5:20, the True God is spoken of in conjunction with a direct connection to eternal life. One reason that God died was so that we could partake of His Eternal Life. Before God died on the cross, no man on the earth possessed God’s Eternal Life. I know that God took men in the O.T. on credit like Enoch and Elijah to heaven. But, even these men were looking forward to what God would accomplish in the future through Jesus Christ.
1Jn 5:12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
He that has the Son of God now has this eternal life of God. This is what Jesus was talking about when He said for us to drink his blood. Jesus was speaking of His blood as being the life of God that we should be able to spiritually drink and become a part of us internally in our spirits. What happens when you drink natural water? It becomes a part of your natural body. If you do not have water to drink you die physically. These are all symbolic representations of what happens to you in the spiritual realm when you drink the Blood of Jesus. So what is the Blood of Jesus? It was His Life, but what is that to us now on earth right now?
1Jn 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
I have already shown you scriptures that told us that the Body of Jesus was the Word of God. Now we see another revelation concerning the Blood of Jesus. If the life of the flesh is in the blood then you can substitute Life and Blood interchangeably and still be correct. It would appear to me that everything reverts back to God’s Word. If you want God’s Life you better study God’s Words and get them into your spirit. This was the key to the lesson that Jesus was teaching on when He said “eat my Flesh” and “drink my blood”. Spiritually speaking we would not be able to do this any other way but by eating and drinking the Word of God and the Word of Life. You may recall the Words of Jesus, when He said “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4). Jesus is again giving us clues into the “hard sayings” that He was teaching in John. Jesus is comparing natural bread that we eat with our physical mouths to the spiritual bread from God. God’s spiritual bread is His Word and we can only eat this by getting God’s Word into our spirits. Jesus said by partaking of the spiritual food it will bring life to us. God’s words are that spiritual food that we need to eat and to drink in our spirits.
So if nothing else today I hope and pray that you learned two things. The Bible contains “Hard Sayings” that are difficult to grasp and accept on the surface only reading of the text. But, then you should have also learned that God has provided explanations in His Word to what these Hard Sayings mean. You have to study, you have to search the Bible for the key words and then you have to allow the Holy Spirit to direct you to the truth. In doing this you come much closer to knowing the truth as Jesus taught us in His Word.
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
God Bless,
If you would like to continue reading in this series about “Understanding Hard Sayings” found in the Bible you may go to “Part 5“.
Understanding the Book of Job? An overview of what it is and what it is not! Part 3
(Ver 2.1) This is Part 3 in a series of advanced Bible study lessons on understanding the book of Job. I have been attempting to give you some new perspectives on the meanings behind the book of Job by showing you how it fits into other verses found in the Bible. Only by using the Bible to interpret the Bible can we really see what God says in any other part of the Bible. If we attempt to interpret a verse, chapter or book in isolation, we are forced to rely on our own opinions and natural thoughts to figure out what it all means. But, I have noticed while studying the Bible that God was not stupid, He didn’t leave us in the dark with us trying to figure out what He said. However, I believe that we are required to search and dig deep in order to find out what His definitions and comments are on the subjects that we are studying. God says the natural man receives not the things written by the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14). So, if you do not understand the Bible, it is because you are either not saved or it is simply just the fact that you are thinking naturally. So if you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1” since I cannot repeat everything I teach in each lesson. What I have been trying to emphasize in these lessons is the fact that God is the originator of blessings and that Satan is the author of the curses encountered in this world. What I haven’t taught is why this transpires.
I will briefly make an attempt at a quick explanation of the origination of good and evil in the world before I continue with Job. When Adam was created, God placed Adam in the Garden with his wife and told Adam that he may freely eat from every tree except one. Everything created by God called “very good” by God’s own admission. There God did not create anything evil, bad or harmful and Adam knew only the goodness of God. There was one tree called symbolically the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that God say do not eat from. God told Adam that the day that he ate from this tree he would surely die. I personally know that this was a symbolic tree that represted a hidden spiritual reality because of what I have studied and found that the Bible says in other parts. In the past I did a couple of lessons on this subject and if you are interested you can read them by going to “Does Eating Fruit Kill You?”. I will not attempt to repeat these lessons here, but I will tell you that Adam made the wrong choice. Isn’t it funny how we keep coming back to people making choices in the world? If you recall I told you that Job made some wrong choices that opened the door for Satan to come in and attack him. These choices of Job involved wrong spoken words, wrong believing, fear, and no peace or rest. This attack of Job was a repeated pattern found from when Adam was given a choice by God and made the wrong selection to let Satan into this world. Adam’s choice resulted in him knowing the evil of Satan’s power. Adam already knew the blessings of God so this was nothing new. It was only Satan and evil that Adam gained or obtained by letting Satan into the world. So if God gave Adam a choice, he must also give every man the same choice after Adam. God does not control the choices of men. God gives each man the freewill to make their own selections. Job therefore had a choice between blessings and cursing. Job allowed Satan to continue working evil in his life. Both Adam and Job experienced the loss of children. I’m sure that both men regretted their decisions, but yet it was too late to take them back.
In the first two lessons on Job, I went through chapter 1, verses 1 through 19 on all of the bad things that happened in rapid succession to Job and his family. I also spent time in trying to reveal the actions that opened the door for Satan to attack Job. It is obvious to me that this was a staged planned attack by Satan to take away everything that God had blessed him with. So what was Job’s reaction? That is where we are going to start today?
Job 1:20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
Job goes into a state of mourning and anguish; after all he just lost all of his children. I do not know of any normal parent that loses their children that is not devastated. To tear your clothing is a sign of sorrow, to shave your head is sign of mourning but, then Job still worships God. This is one of the only good things that Job still does and it describes why he was blessed by God in the first place. What we will find by reading is that even after all that has happened to Job, he does not turn against his God. If you learn any lesson from Job you should learn this lesson, always stay on God’s side no matter what happens to you. If you blame God and start to curse God, you are just digging your hole much deeper. God did not kill Job’s kids, Satan did. You see in the Bible it says this about kids:
Psa 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
What would it mean to be a reward? Children are clearly blessings from God. I told you earlier if God blesses you with children and then kills them to take them away, His house is divided. God would be both the author of the blessings and the author of the curses. How would you ever follow a God who was so crazy and inconsistent? I’m sorry but I could not. I also tried to teach you that the Bible says God is a constant and does not change. These verses prove that God is not the give of life and the destroyer of life simultaneously or God would have to change to do each. God is truly only a giver of life and the devil is the taker of that life, but only by the allowed access of man’s choices do either happen. So let’s see what Job was saying after all of this occurs to him and his family:
Job 1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
Here we have the famous classic Bible verse widely used at many funerals. This is clearly a misguided application of the words of a man in sorrow. If you just lost 10 kids, what would you be saying? I am probably going to get some ignorant Christians mad at me, but I am going to tell you that not everything you read in the Bible is true. These words of Job are truly in the Bible. These words of Job were truly spoken by Job. However, both of these facts together do not make his words the truth. Job was a man without a church, a man without a Bible, a man without a spiritual leader or a pastor and a man who tried to blindly follow his God the best that he knew how to do under these circumstances. It is true that Job had heard about God, but yet at this point in time no one knew that much about God. God had not yet given man any written words to read about Him and to learn from. The only words that Job could have had are the past experiences of Adam and the other descendants of Adam. So why would you think that anything that Job says came from directly from God? Did God come to Job and say I took your kids? I took your possessions? Did God say this or did Job say this? What people say out of their limited state of knowledge and ignorance can be what they believe whole heartedly to be the truth; however, does that ever make it the truth because they believe it to be the truth? Nowhere in this chapter does it ever say that God took anything from Job, only Job says this.
Here is where I should briefly discuss the fact that the Bible says that the Word of God was given by inspiration of the Holy Ghost (2 Tim 3:16). The Greek word in this verse literally means the Bible was God breathed. However, that does not mean everything in the Bible is true. It is like watching the evening news on TV, the newsman is speaking and telling you things and events that were reported to happen that day, but does that mean everything that he says is the truth because it is on the news? What if a news man quotes another man that says “I did not have sex with that intern”. Does that make it the truth because it was on the news? Obviously we learned that it does not. This is the way the Bible was also written. There are quotes in the Bible from men that were clearly ignorant or intentionally lying. For example, in Acts 5, there was a man named Anainias and his wife that fall down dead for lying to the Holy Ghost. Is what they said recorded in book of Acts the truth? Again, obviously not. I hope you can begin to see the struggle with reading the words of men in the Bible versus reading the words of God that were given to men. If the Bible says “Thus saith the Lord” you can count it being the truth. If the Bible says “thus saith Job” you are going to have great difficutly in convincing me this is the complete truth and I talk about this more in a minute.
Let’s talk briefly now about a hedge and the reason for a hedge to even exist. Chapter 1 of Job clearly says that God had placed a hedge of protection around Job. Therefore, who was God protecting Job from? There are only two reasons to build a fence. You do realize this yes? First, you only need a fence around your property if there are animals, enemies or things that can come in and steal from you or hurt you. Second, the only other reason to build a fence is to keep something in, like a prison. I personally believe that both of these were true based upon my knowledge of the Bible. I mean this is not rocket science; you just have to use your brain and think a little bit. So let’s talk more about the first reason on keeping someone out. Who is God guarding Job from? It has to be from Satan! Satan is a created spiritual being and he is capable of coming and going from the earth back and forth to the spiritual realm in heaven. Satan is free to come and go and Job is not. Job is definitely hedged into the earth’s natural and has never seen God or been to heaven. For that matter Job has never seen Satan either, so clearly there is a hedge that prevents this view. So what is a hedge by God’s definition? This is where it really starts to get more interesting. You see our definition is usually not’s God’s definition. This word hedge is only found 3 times in the whole O.T. This Hebrew word occurs twice in the book of Job and I personally believe this second usage of the word was the key to the definition:
Job 10:11 Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.
Let’s briefly discuss the context of this verse. Job is speaking and he is describing his body and God’s intelligent design of it. Notice what Job says, Job is telling us that he is clothed with a body and that this body of flesh and bones is a “fence” around him. The Hebrew word translated as “fence” is the exact same Hebrew word that was translated as “hedge’ in chapter 1. Wow, I find that fascinating. This is what we discover happening when Adam sinned. God clothed Adam with a coat of skin. Pay close attention to the fact that the body as described is not Job nor Adam, but rather they were actually the spirit that is covered by the body. Isn’t this the definition of a hedge? To keep something in or to keep something out? What is Satan? Satan is a created spirit being. Satan is not allowed by God’s law to come into the natural realm to tempt or test as I taught in the first lesson. I believe that this physical body is our hedge of protection from the evil beings in the spirit realm. It is also our physical bodies that keeps us present in this world. But, I do not have time to fully expand that thought today in this lesson. It was simply an introduction to get you to think about something new. Think about this also, when Satan attacked Job, what did he attack? Did not Satan attack Job in the physical realm and not Job in the spiritual realm? Could Satan have hurt Job spiritually speaking? It is impossible to kill or hurt a spirit being, so Job was incabple of being harmed spiritually. Therefore, I believe that Satan attacked God’s designed hedge or protection that surrounded Job and this was the man’s body and his natural surroundings that he possessed. It certainly changes your perspective dramatically when thinking in these terms and I hope you are seeing them.
So let’s get back to the words of Job and what he said in chaoter 1 about the Lord taking and the Lord giving and determine if that is the truth or just his words. Do you understand that there are many accounts of people speaking in the Bible and some of these people are clearly ignorant and do not know what they are talking about. There are also many clear accounts of people who intentionally lie in the Bible as I just talked about found in Acts 5. Jesus taught us that Satan is the father of lies and the words of Satan are found throughout the Bible. Based upon the shear presence of lies being recorded in the Bible, do you understand how this information makes correct Bible interpretation more difficult? If it does not say “Thus Saith the Lord God” or the Words of Jesus in Red Letters, then you are taking the words that are potentially words of an ignorant man or woman and exalting them to the status of God’s words. Having said all of that there are Prophets of God who do speak God’s words, but even they sometimes quote Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar or someone else who does not speak for God. Correctly interpreting the Bible is not as easy as you think and it takes brains, thought, logic and seeing who is speaking, who they are talking to and then finally noticing exactly what they say.
So let me ask you this, is Job a prophet? Is Job speaking for God? I’ve been to too many funerals given by preachers who think that these are the Words of God Himself, just because they are written in the Bible. These are tough questions to answer based upon just the small parts that we have read so far. But let’s go to the end of the book of Job and see what opinion God has of the spoken words of Job. After all it really shouldn’t matter what you or I think about the Words of Job, it should really only matter what God thinks about his spoken words:
Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
As you can clearly see God is about to speak directly to Job and say something very significant to him. You should pay very close attention to the next words that do come out of the mouth of God and then go back and apply these to what Job said in chapter 1 about God taking things away from him:
Job 38:2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
God basically tells Job you do not know what you are talking about, so why do you open your mouth and speak any of these words. According to God Job is speaking empty words from an empty head. Therefore, we can clearly see that Job is confirmed by God to be ignorant! God says Job has no knowledge to speak in the areas that he is attempting to speak in. So should Job be saying anything at all? Or should Job being doing what most Christians in the world should be doing and listen to God in order to learn. Instead of running their mouths on the internet, many people need to hear what God is saying and go get some knowledge before they try to speak anything. There are virtually many chapters of Job and most of these verses are just the empty words of ignorant men who should not be talking. Yet we have a vast number of preachers who want to quote Job’s words at funerals as if God had spoken them. That is just more demonstrations of ignorance in action. I hope that if you learned anything today you learned the lesson of what God thought of Job’s spoken words.
Job 1:22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
We finally see what the last verse in chapter 1 says, after all of Job’s accusations of God stealing his possessions and killing his kids God says that Job did not sin nor charge God foolishly. You see what people do or say out of ignorance is often overlooked by God. Especially in the case where there is no written laws of God to follow. Since Job had no Bible and was doing the best that he could to figure out what was the right things to do, God overlooked his accusations. Let’s see a verse that is applicable to what is stated in Job:
Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
Clearly God says where there is not law there is no punishment for sins. The law brings wrath and the law permits punishment, and this is true in the natural realm as well as the spiritual realm. You see there was a time when child pornography was legal, but was it right? Absolutely not, but yet because of the lack of laws, no one could be convicted of this crime. It was only after laws were passed that now people are punished. Because, Job lived during the time where there were no Mosaic laws of God written, there was no punishment that God could bring if He wanted to. So Job did not transgress God’s laws even if he did not do or say everything right.
The next time you go to a funeral and they start to tell you how God took somebody, or their children, I hope that you can at least see this was not true. God is not the thief who kills, steals and destroys. The only two times I saw God take anyone in the Bible, God did not have to kill them to do it. Enoch the Bible says was translated and poof he was gone. Elijah was caught up in a chariot of fire and Elisha saw it happen. So these are the only two times in the Bible that God is said to have taken anyone up beside the raised from the dead Jesus Christ. If you can see somebody go up in a chariot of fire, then you can claim that God took them, otherwise do not accuse God of doing something that He did not do. God does not have to kill anybody to take them to heaven; many people will find this out the hard way before too long when Jesus appears for the catching away of the church. Then the dead in Christ will arise first and those that remain will be translated as Enoch and suddenly all disappear from the planet. What a vast confusion this event will cause all over the world.
I guess I should briefly mention the subject of God’s judgment. There are times in the Bible, like Noah’s flood or Sodom and Gomorrah that God is forced to exercise judgment upon the earth. What happens when God exercises judgment? In both cases, Noah and Lot the righteous were spared and the others perished completely. So why do people want to apply God’s judgment to Job? If Job was an unrighteous man and fell into judgment, he would not have been around at the end of the book. Do not confuse judgment with attacks from Satan. Satan does not have to ask permission to attack you, all he has to do is watch for you to open the door and Satan has learned he is now free to do to you what he can get away with. In the book of Job you find that Satan is presenting himself with the other angels to learn what is valid and what is not valid for him to do. Why is Satan being so careful? You see you may recall that there are other references in the Bible to the “sons of God”. In Genesis 6, before the flood, the sons of God are again referenced. This time the “sons of God” see the daughters of men and see that they are physically beautiful. These angels have physical sex with the human females and create races of giants on the earth. This results in a polluted mixture of men and angels and God says this was an illegal perversion of God’s laws and design. This was clearly an example of the angels crossing over the hedge. You can see that by reading this verse in 2 Peter:
2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
If God threw some angels into hell (but not all of them), they must have violated some spiritual law or done something that was very perverted. Having sex with natural women would be an example of this type of perversion. The angels are obviously ignorant of what is permissible and what is not permissible for them to do. So believing that Satan is appearing before God in Job chapter 1 to accuse Job and to find out what is permissible makes perfect sense to me. Satan has certainly seen that some of his angels were already cast into darkness, locked up with spiritual chains. Do you understand that Satan must learn what is permissible and what is not? So I have gone long enough in this lesson for today and I have given you many new things to think about. I appreciate greatly your time in studying the Bible and if you have any comments or question about anything I have taught, please do not hesitate to leave me a comment. God Bless.
If you would like to continue to read in this series about Job, please go to “Part 4“.
Understanding the Book of Job! An overview of what it is and what it is not! Part 1
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 1 of a series about understanding the Book of Job. The book of Job is a highly controversial book of mostly confusing information. The book of Job has been widely given the theme of patience and we see this mentioned in the New Testament book of James. This reference in James is the only time Job is mentioned by name in the N.T. The name Job is mentioned only 54 times and mostly just in the book of Job. However, the name does occur in Genesis 46 and Ezekiel 14. The book of Job is primarily about the afflictions of Job. However, the initiator of the problems in Job’s life and the cause of the problems are widely misinterpreted. The book of Job is often quoted at funerals and this is another misapplication of the scriptures and I will probably get into these verses later. The first two chapters reveal the afflictions occurring to this righteous man and then starts the words of Job in chapter 3 in an apparent conversation with some of his friends that have come to tell him what to do and this continues for many chapters. The discourse between Job and his friends go back and forth and finally end when God comes into the conversation with some new information that shuts everyone up. The last chapter of Job ends with God’s blessings on him being restored more than he ever had before. Most Bible scholars agree that Job is probably the oldest book of the Bible. The timeframe of Job is probably somewhere between Noah and Moses since it does not refer to Israel, the Old Testament law or any reference to God’s covenant with Abraham. The author of Job is probably the man Job himself, but we do not know this for sure. There are several verses found in Job that reveal things to us that confirm that it belongs in the Bible and that it is the inspired information from the Spirit of God. So I will not attempt to do a verse by verse study of the entire book, there is just too much unknown information found in this book to do this. I will attempt to teach some key verses that I have seen and I will try to use other verses in the Bible to help us to interpret what we find in Job correctly. Always remember that the Bible interprets itself. Let’s start with verse 1:
Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
The first verse informs us where Job lived and what his nature and character was in the eyes of God. God calls the man Job a complete man, in other words a righteous man. He was humble and feared God and resisted evil. This is the type of man that God can stand behind as we will find out shortly.
Job 1:2 And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
The man Job was married as we will also find out and he had 10 children. In the next verse we will see that the blessing of God were upon him.
Job 1:3 His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.
According to this verse Job was the greatest of all of the men of the east. This is strictly in terms of wealth and the blessings of God on his life. This is also a hidden hint to the reasons of things to come. If God’s blessing are on someone, he will get the attention of everyeone else physcially and spiritually speaking. When Satan sees the blessings of God upon Job, Job became a target. In verse 4 of Job 1, you can see that Job had problems with his children. They like to party, eat, drink and be merry. They were into having fun more than they were into work and doing right. This caused Job vast concern of what would happen to his children. This is the introduction to what Job worried about the most.
Job 1:5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
So Job does some things that I find very interesting. His kids have stopped their partying and Job is offering burnt offering for the number of his children to the Lord. Where does Job get the idea for this? I honestly do not know. As far as I know there is no law, no priests and there was no precedence for doing what he is doing. Is Job a priest of God? I do not know? We know from the N.T. that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Heb 9:22). So Job was doing the right things, but where did he get this information? Plus was it doing any good since it was his children that were sinning and not him? This verse ends with the statement that Job did this continually so we assume that his kids were continually in a party mode. There is another scripture in the N.T. that I believe should be applied to this information we are given, and it goes like this “God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap” (Gal 6:7). What were Job’s children sowing? Will they reap what they sow regardless of what their father does? I believe God says they will.
Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
So here we go with another introduction to some highly confusing information. The book of Job seems to change dramatic focus from the earth to a place in heaven. The “sons of God” are the angels of God and this would include all angels, the good and the bad. This verse says Satan came with them like he is not included in the group of “sons of God”, but I totally disagree with that interpretation and I believe that Satan was their leader and the most high angel. You can see this by reading verses in Ezekiel 28:14 that describe Satan as the anointed cherub and the covering cherub. Then in Isaiah 14:12, Satan is called Lucifer, the son of the morning. Morning is the “Early Light” and since God is Light we can see that Lucifer is called an early son of God.
Job 1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
We are now told that Satan has come from the earth, so we know that he is not on the earth while he is holding this conversation with God. We also learn that Satan is not omnipresent. He must walk across the earth and go from place to place. We therefore know that Satan is not everywhere on the earth at once. However, we do not know how many angels that Satan has under his control on the earth so there may be many angels tormenting people simultaneously and not just Satan doing everything. However, many angels there are, the Bible says in Revelation 12 that 1/3 of them are fallen with Satan. There is also another reality given to us found in the N.T. that helps to explain what is happing to Job. In 1 Peter 5:8 God informs us that Satan is our adversary and he goes about as a roaring lion seeking who he may devour. Is this not exactly describing what is happening here in Job? Satan had just come from walking the earth and he came across Job. He is obviously the adversary of Job that God has hedged out. But, he is seeking to devour Job as we will see as we continue to read in this chapter. We learn from reading 1 Peter 5:8 that Satan is not able to devour everyone if he is seeking ways to do this. This indicates that Satan is not omnipotent and neither does he have direct access to anyone unless certain conditions are met to allow him to come in. Keep 1 Peter 5:8 in your mind as we continue to read about Job:
Job 1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
Why do you think that God brings up Job? I believe it is because God knows what you are thinking. God knows why Satan is there. Job is a spiritually righteous blessed man of God; there is none like him on the earth. In the eyes of God this is why Satan was there to contend for this man.
Job 1:9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Satan starts to ask God questions about Job. Why does Satan ask this question? Does Job fear God for no reason or for nothing as he said to God? This sounds like a complaint or accusation to me.
Job 1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
Now we begin to see the problem that Satan has and why he is there to see God. Satan is questioning God’s authority to place a hedge of protection around Job and his family. You can clearly see what God is being accused of, the fact that God has blessed Job and given him great wealth and placed a spiritual wall of protection around him so that Satan could not touch him. What gives Satan the right to do this? That is an excellent question to consider, we know that Job’s children are living in sin in a constant state of partying. Job is continually offering sacrifices for his children who do not want sacrifices to be made or at least it appears that they do not care if they are made. The children of Job are not repentant or sorry for what they are doing, they are just being wild crazy rich kids who can get away with whatever they want, or so they think. We know that Satan is called the accuser of the brethren in the Revelation 12:10. This verse in Revelation says that Satan accuses the people of God on the earth both day and night. To accuse is a legal term that means “to charge with an offense”. You do understand that God is the ultimate supreme Judge of the Universe? Satan is the “Plaintiff” that brings accusations against righteous people before the Judge. So why does Satan do this? So these righteous people can be found guilty of violating the spiritual laws that God has established in the spiritual realm. Do you understand this? Satan is looking for a way into your life, he watches your every move, your every action, your every reaction and your every word to see what he can accuse you of doing that violates God’s laws. This is how it works until Revelation 12 comes around and Satan is cast down and he is no longer welcome to come into the heavenly realm to accuse us anymore.
Job 1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
So here is where it starts to get even more difficult to understand and to interpret correctly. Satan tells God to stretch His hand and touch all that he has and Job will curse God to His face. So is God the curser or was God the one that blessed Job? If you recall from reading earlier we know that God was the one that blessed Job and made him exceedingly wealthy. It was God who had placed the hedge of protection around him and his family so what would happen if God changes and does the opposite like Satan just said for God to do? If God does what Satan just said, then God becomes a liar. That is pretty strong words, but that is what the Bibles says:
Mal 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not;
According to the Bible, God is a constant never changing force of good. If God would have blessed Job and suddenly bent to the pressure from Satan to change and curse Job then God is guilty of changing. Do you understand that this is impossible? The Bible describes God as being Light. Do you know that the speed of light is a constant? The speed of light does not diminish or change it always stays the same. The distances of stars in our universe are measured in the terms of light years. A light year is the distance that light travels in the course of a year’s time. This is a constant value or we have a major problem on our hands. If you do not understand laws of physics and science about light and the speed of light, just fix your mind on God. If God blessed someone today and tomorrow takes it all away, then God changed and now God is a liar. That is a major problem with most people’s Bible interpretations, they interpret a book of the Bible like Job in a vacuum and ignore the rest of the Bible and this is not a valid interpretation. Here is another challenge for you to consider from something that God said in the book of Deuteronomy:
Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
If God sets before us life or death, blessing or cursing and says to us to choose between the two, whose fault is it which one we get? Uh oh? That is a problem isn’t it? It would appear that if Job got curses instead of blessings, then he made the wrong choices to cause them to occur. Do you understand this?
Job 1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
So we now have God giving permission, or so many people think it says. This however, is not what this verse says. Nowhere in this verse does it say you have won your case, I give you permission. People just read this into the statement because that is what they want to see that it says. All God said was “Behold” and that means look, open your eyes and see. Do you understand that? That is not a statement of permission; it is a directive for Satan to see what has already happened. You cannot behold something that is not already there. I mean God can see into the future, but Satan cannot. If Satan is told to see something it has to be something that he can already see. This is clearly not rocket science, so surely you can comprehend the simple words of the Bible. Then God tells Satan that all that Job has is in his power. Again this is not I give you the power; this is a simple statement that says you already have the power. There is such a huge difference between those two perspectives. The only thing God does is limit what Satan can do and this was not to touch Job. So God was guilty of still trying to protect his righteous man Job. God never gives Satan permission to do anything. God simply said you already have the right to do what Job has chosen.
So who is the author of destruction? Who causes death and tornadoes? We will find out in our next lesson about the story of Job. I hope that you will join me as I continue with this series of very different Bible lessons. Thanks for your time and your comments. God Bless.
If you would like to continue reading in this series you can go to “Part 2“.
Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of the Church in the Bible
(Ver 2.2) This is my list of the Names, Titles, Descriptions, Types and Symbols for the Church of Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian, this document helps to describe who you are and your place in the Kingdom of God. This is a living document of references to God. It will change and be updated as I find additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the Church. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents something in words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a spiritual individual not named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes characteristics or features of a spiritual being you cannot see.
If you have found others that I may have not included yet, please share them in a comment. Thank you and God bless you in advance.
words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol. If you know of other references not named, please share them with me in a comment. Thank you.
|
Name, Title, Symbol, Type for the Church |
Description |
Scripture Reference |
|
12 Tribes |
New Covenant People in Jesus originating in His 12 Apostles, the fulfilment of Jacob’s 12 sons. |
James 1:1; |
|
Abraham’s Seed |
Those with Abraham’s type of Faith |
Gal 3:29; |
|
Babes |
Newborn (born again) Children of God |
Mat 11:25; Luke 10:21; |
|
Beloved |
The Bride of Christ |
Rom 9:25; 2 Ths 2:13; |
|
Blessed of My Father |
The Sheep of God’s Pasture |
Mat 25:34; |
|
Body, His |
Those married in Covenant to Christ |
Eph 1:23; Col 1:24; |
|
Body, the |
Those who are in Christ |
Eph 5:23; |
|
Body of Christ |
She Who is Joined and one with Christ |
Rom 7:4; 1 Cor 10:16, 12:27; Eph 4:12; Col 2:17 |
|
Born Again |
Those who are new Children of the Spirit |
John 3:3-6; 1 Pet 1:23; |
|
Born of God |
Children of the Spirit |
1 John 3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 4, 18; |
|
Born of Him |
Born Again of the Spirit |
1 John 2:29; |
|
Bride |
Married to Jesus |
John 3:29; Rev 21:2, 9; |
|
Bridechamber, Children of the |
Those married in covenant to the bridegroom (Jesus) |
Mat 9:15; |
|
Brother |
Sibling of eldest brother Jesus Christ |
Mat 10:50; Rom 8:29; Heb 2:11, 17; |
|
Called, the |
Those chosen by God |
Rom 1:6, 8:30, 9:24; 1 Cor 1:24; |
|
Candlestick |
Lights in the dark World |
Rev 1:20; |
|
Chosen |
Those people that have embraced the Calling of God to follow Jesus |
Jam 2:5; |
|
Chosen Generation |
Highly Favored People |
1 Pet 2:9; |
|
Children |
Sons and daughters of God |
Rom 8:17; |
|
Children, Dear |
Those dearly Loved by God |
Eph 5:1; |
|
Children of Abraham |
A Spiritual family type of Israel |
Gal 3:7; |
|
Children of God |
Born of the Spirit |
Mat 5:9; Rom 8:16, 21; Gal 3:26; 1 Jn 3:10; |
|
Children of Israel |
Spiritual Nation of God’s people |
Exo 19:6; Hos 2:23; |
|
Children of Light |
God is Light, those who are His children |
Luk 16:8; John 12:36; Eph 5:8; 1 Th 5:5; |
|
Children of the Day |
Those walking in the Light of God |
1 Th 5:5; |
|
Children of the Free Woman |
A type of the promised child born to Sarah, those who are reborn from the spiritual woman Jerusalem Above |
Gal 4:31; |
|
Children of the Living God |
Those Born of the Spirit |
Rom 9:26; |
|
Children of the Kingdom |
Those Who Belong to God’s Kingdom |
Mat 13:38; |
|
Children of the Promise |
Children of God’s Spoken Word |
Rom 9:8, Gal 4:28; |
|
Chosen |
Those Favored by God |
Eph 1:4; 2 Ths 2:13; |
|
Christ |
Those with God’s Anointing and Jesus in their Hearts |
2 Cor 6:15; |
|
Christian |
A Believer in Christ |
Acts 26:28; 1 Pet 4:16; |
|
Christians |
Followers of Christ |
Act 11:26; |
|
Church, Glorious |
Noble and Honorable |
Eph 5:27; |
|
Church, My |
Those Who Belong to God |
Mat 16:18; |
|
Church of Christ |
Those who Belong to Jesus |
Rom 16:16; |
|
Church of God |
Called Out by God |
Act 20:28; 1 Cor 1:2, 10:32; 2 Cor 1:1; |
|
Church of the Firstborn |
Those gathered in and with Christ Jesus the Firstborn from the dead |
Heb 12:23; |
|
Circumcised Heart |
God’s children that have been circumcised by the hand of the Spirit |
Rom 2:29; Php 3:3; Col 2:11; |
|
City |
The home of God within His people |
Mat 5:14; Rev 21:23; |
|
City, Faithful |
She who will be a faithful wife to God’s Covenant |
Isa 1:26; |
|
City of My God |
Where God Resides; |
Rev 3:12; |
|
City of Righteousness |
Those abiding with God who is their righteousness |
Isa 1:26; |
|
City of the Lord |
Those of the New Jerusalem |
Isa 60:14 |
|
City Not Forsaken, A |
Those pursued by God |
Isa 62:12; |
|
Daughter of Jerusalem |
The Church who is reborn by the Spirit of God, His Word and the woman Heavenly Jerusalem |
Mic 4:8; Zep 3:14; Zec 9:9; Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22; |
|
Daughter of Zion |
She who is Born of God |
Isa 52:2, 62:11; Mat 21:5; Heb 12:22; |
|
Disciple |
The Student of God |
Mat 10:24-25; |
|
Ekklesia (Church) |
A Calling Out |
Mat 18:17; Act 2:47; Rev 22:16; |
|
Elect, The |
Those Chosen of God |
Mat 24:31; |
|
Faithful Brethren in Christ |
Those married to Christ |
Col 1:2; |
|
Fellow Citizens |
Residents of the City of God |
Eph 2:10; |
|
Fellow Heirs |
Joint heirs together of God’s Kingdom |
Eph 3:6; |
|
Fellow Servant |
Working Together in Unison |
Rev 22:9; |
|
Field, His |
God’s Garden |
Mat 13:24; |
|
Flock of God |
Those in God’s Pasture |
1 Pet 5:2; |
|
Followers |
Those that that imitate the Godly examples of others |
1 Cor 11:1; |
|
Followers of God |
Led By the Spirit |
Eph 5:1; |
|
Friends |
Jesus Laid Down His Life for Us |
Jn 15:13-14; |
|
General Assembly |
Universal Congregation |
Heb12:23; |
|
Glory and Honor of the Nations |
Where God Resides |
Rev 21:26 |
|
Good Soldier of Jesus Christ |
Those in God’s Army |
2 Tim 2 :3; |
|
Great City |
She Who is Mighty and Strong |
Rev 21:10; |
|
Ground, Good |
The Good Soil of the Kingdom of God |
Mat 13:23; |
|
Habitation of God |
The New Jerusalem God’s City of Living Stones |
Eph 2:22; |
|
Heir(s) |
He Who Inherits |
Rom 8:17; Gal 3:29; Gal 4:1; Tit 3:7; 1 Pet 3:7; |
|
Heirs according to the Promise |
Those who inherit |
Gal 3:29 |
|
Heirs of God |
Those Who Inherit |
Rom 8:17; Gal 4:7; |
|
Heirs of Promise |
Those who inherit by an oath |
Heb 6:17; |
|
Heirs of Salvation |
Those that inherit the Kingdom of God |
Heb 1:14; |
|
Heirs of the Kingdom |
Those that inherit the Kingdom of God |
Jam 2:5; |
|
Holy City |
He has made her clean and ready |
Isa 52:1; Rev 21”2; |
|
Holy Jerusalem |
Blameless City of Jehovah |
Revn 21:10; |
|
Holy Nation |
Blameless People |
Exo 19:6; 1 Pet 2:9; |
|
House, Christ’s |
The Dwelling of Christ Jesus |
Heb 3:6; |
|
Household of Faith |
Those in the Family of God by Faith |
Gal 6:10; |
|
Household of God |
Those in the Family of God |
Eph 2:19; |
|
Household, His |
Those in the Family of God |
Mat 10:25; |
|
House of God |
Where the Spirit of God Lives |
1 Tim 3:15; |
|
House of Israel |
The Spiritual Israel in Covenant with Jesus |
Eze 34:30; Heb 8:8 |
|
House of Judah |
The Spiritual Jews in Covenant with Jesus |
Heb 8:8 |
|
In Christ |
Those abiding in Jesus Christ |
Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 1:2, 3:1 15:22; 2 Cor 1:21, 2:14, 3:14, 5:17; Gal 3:28; Eph 2:6, 2:10, 2:13, 3:6; 2 Tim 3:15; |
|
Isaac |
The church called a type of the son of promise being in Christ |
Gal 4:28; |
|
Israel |
God’s people saved by Grace |
Rom 11:26; |
|
Jerusalem |
City Redeemed of the Lord |
Isa 52:2, 9; Dan 9:25; |
|
Jew |
Spiritual type of natural Israel; Circumcised of the Heart |
Rom 2:29; |
|
Joined Unto the Lord |
The Bride of Christ |
1 Cor 6:17; |
|
Joint-Heirs with Christ |
Those who Inherit |
Rom 8:17; |
|
Just, the |
Those Who are Blameless |
Mat 13:49; |
|
Kingdom of Priests |
Spiritual People |
Exo 19:6; |
|
Kings |
God’s Royalty |
Rev 1:6; |
|
Kings of the Earth |
Rulers of the Earth |
Rev 1:5, 21:24 |
|
Lamb’s Wife, the |
Married to Jesus |
Rev 21:2, 9; |
|
Light |
Those of the Day |
2 Cor 6:14; Eph 5:8; Php 2:15; |
|
Light of the World |
Those that Teach the Truth and demonstrate the Love of God |
Mat 5:14; |
|
Living Stone |
The New Jerusalem of God |
1 Peter 2:5 |
|
Members of Christ |
The Body of Christ |
1 Cor 6:1; |
|
More than Conquerors |
The church in Christ Jesus |
Rom 8:37; |
|
Mother |
Spiritual Mother of God |
Mat 12:50; Gal 4:19; Rev 12:1; |
|
Nation, A |
Those of Spiritual Israel |
Isa 55:5; |
|
Nations of Them Which are Saved |
The Redeemed of the Lord from every nation |
Rev 21:24; |
|
New Creature |
Those Born of the Spirit |
2 Cor 5:17; |
|
New Jerusalem |
The Lamb’s Wife |
Rev 3:12, 21:2; |
|
One |
One consisting of many in Christ |
Gal 3:28; Eph 1:10; |
|
One Body |
One With Christ by Marriage Covenant; |
1 Cor 10:17, 12:12; |
|
One Bread |
One With Christ by Covenant |
1 Cor 10:17; |
|
Partakers of His Promise |
Participants of the union with the Holy Spirit. |
Eph 3:6; |
|
Peculiar People |
Purchased Possession |
Tit 2:15; 1 Pet 2:9; |
|
People, A |
God’s Spiritual People |
Heb 8:10 |
|
People, Holy |
Those made blameless |
Isa 62:12; |
|
People, My |
Spiritual Nation of Israel |
Hos 2:23; Rom 9:25; |
|
People Israel, My |
Children Born of the Sprit |
Mat 2:6; |
|
Pillar in the Temple of My God |
Living Stone |
Rev 3:12; |
|
Precious Fruit of the Earth |
That Which is to Be Harvested |
Jam 5:7; |
|
Priests |
Those who bring the sacrifice of Praise to God |
Rev 1:6; |
|
Priesthood, Holy |
Those who bring the sacrifice of Praise to God |
1 Pet 2:5; |
|
Purchased (Possession) |
Those Bought with the Blood |
Act 20:28; |
|
Rachael |
The type of the Bride of God’s Week of Work |
Gen 29:18 |
|
Ransomed of the Lord |
Those Bought with the Blood of Jesus |
Isaiah 35:10; |
|
Redeemed of the Lord |
Those Purchased from the World of Darkness |
Psa 107:2; Isa 51:11; 62:12; |
|
Righteous, the |
Those Justified by God |
Mat 13:43; 1 Pet 3:12; |
|
Righteousness |
Those Justified by God |
2 Cor 6:14; |
|
Righteousness, Servants of |
Those who Serve God’s Purpose |
Rom 6:18; |
|
Royal Priesthood |
New Covenant Kings and Priests that praise and worship God |
1 Pet 2:9; |
|
Ruth |
A Type of the Bride of Christ |
Ruth |
|
Saints |
Sacred, Pure, Blameless |
Rom 1:7, 15:25, 16:15; 1 Cor 1:2, 16:1, 15; 2 Cor 1:1, 13:13; Eph 1:1, 2:19, 3:18, 4:12, 6:18; Php 4:22; Col 1:2; 1 Th 3:13; |
|
Saints In Christ Jesus |
Those blameless in Christ |
Php 1:1; |
|
Saints in Light |
Those blameless in God |
Col 1:12; |
|
Salt of the Earth |
Those who flavor and preserve |
Mat 5:12; |
|
Same Body, the |
Joined members of the same body |
Eph 3:6; |
|
Saved |
Those redeemed from Satan’s kingdom |
Rom 8:24; 1 Cor 15:2; 2 Cor 2:15; |
|
Seed, Abraham’s |
Those of spiritual Father Abraham |
Gal 3:29; |
|
Seed, Good |
Those planted by God |
Mat 13:38; |
|
Seed, the |
Those of the Promise of Abraham |
Rom 9:8; |
|
Servant |
Those in service to God |
Mat 10:24; |
|
Sheep |
Those in God’s Flock sorted at the right Hand of God |
Mat 25:33; Heb 13:20; 1 Pet 2:25; |
|
Sheep, My |
Those people dedicated to follow the Good Shepherd |
Jn 10:14; Jn 21:16 |
|
Sister |
The Sibling of Christ |
Mat 12:50; |
|
Sister Spouse |
Sister Married to Christ |
Song 4:9-10, 12; 5:1 |
|
Sons of God |
Those Born of the Spirit |
Jn 1:12, Rom 8:14, 8:19; Gal 4:6; Php 2:15; 1 John 3:1-2; |
|
Sons of the Living God |
Born of the Spirit |
Hos 1:10; |
|
Sought Out |
Those pursued by God |
Isa 62:12 |
|
Spiritual House |
The New Jerusalem God’s dwelling place |
1 Pet 2:5; |
|
Spouse |
The Bride of the Son of God Jesus |
Song 4:8, 11; |
|
Sweet Savor |
Pleasant aroma of Praise to God |
2 Cor 2:15; |
|
Tabernacle, the |
God’s Eternal Temple |
Rev 21:3; |
|
Temple of God, the |
God’s Dwelling Place |
1 Cor 3:16; |
|
Temple of the Holy Ghost, the |
God’s Holy Living City |
1 Cor 3:19; |
|
They which are written in the Lambs Book of Life |
The Church |
Rev 21:27; |
|
Tree, Good |
Those who produce Fruit of the Spirit |
Mat 7:17-18; |
|
Tree of the Field |
Those that bear fruit for God |
Eze 34:27; |
|
True Worshipper |
Those people in the Spirit |
Jn 4:23; |
|
Twelve Tribes, the |
The Spiritual Israel of God |
Jam 1:1; |
|
Vessels |
Those of the House in Honor |
2 Tim 2:20; |
|
Vessels of Mercy |
A saved human |
Rom 9:23; |
|
Way, the |
Believers walking and following the Good Shepherd in the narrow path of eternal life |
Gen 3:24; Mat 3:3; Mat 7:14; Act 9:2, Act 16:17; |
|
Wheat, the |
That which is planted by God for Harvest |
Mat 13:30; |
|
Wife |
The Church aka the Bride of Jesus |
Eph 5:25, 5:31-32; |
|
Woman, A |
The Bride of Christ |
Rev 12:1 |
|
Workman, A |
God’s faithful servants |
2 Tim 2:15; |
|
Zion, the |
Those of the New Jerusalem |
Isa 60:14; |
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Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Jerusalem in the Bible
(ver 2.0) This is Part 4 in a series of reference documents revealing the multiple Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Spiritual Individuals in the Bible. This lesson will focus only on the subject verses describing Jerusalem found in the Bible. This is a living document of references to Jerusalem and it will change and be updated as I am led to additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the individual. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents the individual in expressive words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol.
Jerusalem is a central subject of the Bible and the capital of Israel located in the Middle East today. Jerusalem is also a major city revealed in end time prophecy. This city has captured the attention of the entire world. Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible directly around 767 times and indirectly many other times. However, it is very important for you to know that there is more than one city named Jerusalem in the Bible. In fact there are 3 separate and distinct cities all with this exact name. Knowing this information complicates correct Bible interpretation significantly. You must be wise enough to know which Jerusalem God is talking about when you see the name “Jerusalem” by itself. You may be asking yourself what are these three cities named Jerusalem and I will give you a quick lesson on them:
- The Jerusalem that now is as revealed in Galatians 4:25 and in multiple other verses and the primary subject of this document.
- The Jerusalem Above revealed in Galatians 4:26 and is called the Heavenly Jerusalem in Hebrews 12:22.
- The New Jerusalem revealed as the Lamb’s wife in Revelation 3:12 and 21:2.
From these references you should be able to recognize the existence of three cities named Jerusalem. This document will primarily focus on the one reference of the Jerusalem on the earth that now is. If you have seen other verses that I have not found yet for Jerusalem, please share them with me in a comment. Thank you.
|
Name, Title, Symbol, Type for Jerusalem |
Description |
Scripture Reference |
| Abomination | Disgusting Idol Worshipper | Ezekiel 9:4; Ezekiel 16:2, 36, 51, 58; Ezekiel 22:2, 23:36; 33:29; Malachi 2:11; Revelation 17:4-5 |
| Adulteress | Unfaithful Wife | Jeremiah 3:1; Jeremiah 5:7; Ezekiel 16:32; Ezekiel 23:45; Hosea 3:1 |
| Afflicted | Depressed Woman | Isaiah 51:21 |
| Aholibah | My Tent is In Her; Whore | Ezekiel 23:4 |
| Ariel | The Symbolic Name of Jerusalem | Isaiah 29:1-7 |
| Babylon | The Whore | 1 Peter 5:13 |
| Bad City | Wicked City | Ezra 4:12 |
| Birthed in Land of Canaan | Where She was born | Eze 16:3; |
| Bloody City | Those that Kill the Prophets | Ezekiel 22:2, 24:6,9; Nahum 3:1 |
| Bond Woman | Spiritual Hagar Egyptian Slave | Galatian 4:24-25, 30-31 |
| Burdensome Stone | Load Carrier | Zec 12:3; |
| Castle of Zion | The Net or Snare of Zion | 1 Chron 11:5; |
| City | Inhabited by the Children of Israel | Judges 1:8; 2 Kings 23:27; Psalm 122:3; Zec 14:2; Jeremiah 26:9 |
| City, Chosen | Highly Favored of Jehovah | 1 Kings 11:36; 1 Kings 14:21; 2 Kings 23:27; 2 Chron 12:13 |
| City of a Stranger | Home of the Jebusites | Judges 19:12 |
| City of David | David the Great King’s City | 1 Kings 8:1; 2 Kings 9:28; 2 Kings 14:20’ 2 Kings 23:27; 1 Chron 11:5; 2 Chron 5:2; 2 Chron 21:20; Isaiah 22:9; |
| City, Faithful | She who is faithful to God | Isaiah 1:26; |
| City of Righteousness | The inhabitants have God’s righteousness | Isaiah 1:26; |
| City of the Great King | City of David | Matthew 5:35; |
| City of the Jebusites | Inhabited by the trodden | Judges 19:11; 1 Chron 11:4; |
| City Where David Dwelt | The City of David the King | Isaiah 29:1; |
| City Which Is Called By Thy Name | Married to Jehovah | Daniel 9:18; |
| City Which Killed Jesus our Lord | Those Who the shed Blood of God is On their Hands | Mat 16:21; Rev 11:8; |
| Covent Breakers | Those Who Broke Covent with God | Eze 16:59; Romans 1:31; |
| Curse, A | City which is cursed | Jeremiah 26:6; |
| Daughter | Female born of a woman | Ezekiel 23:2; |
| Daughter of an Amortie | Her Father was a Canaanitish Mountain Tribe; | Ezekiel 16:3, 45; |
| Daughter of a Hittite | Her Mother was a terrorist; Fear and Terror | Ezekiel 16:3, 45; |
| Desolate | Waste Land | Jeremiah 26:8 |
| Desolate City | Jerusalem laid waste | Eze 26:19 |
| Desolation | Waste Land | Zep 2:15; |
| Divorced Woman | She that was Put Away | Isaiah 50:1; Jeremiah 3:8; Hosea 2:2 |
| Dross | Backsliders; Those who draw back; Refuse of the furnace | Ezekiel 22:18-19; |
| Drunken | She Who is Drunk | Isaiah 51:21: Jeremiah 13:13; Ezekiel 23:33; |
| Egypt | Spiritual Name for Jerusalem; Where she played the Whore in Her youth | Hosea 11:1; Revelation 11:8 |
| Evil | Moral Wickedness | Jeremiah 25:5 |
| Evil Figs | The Spoiled Fruit | Jeremiah 24:8; |
| Family Know of God | She who was married to Jehovah | Amos 3:2; |
| Faithful City | She who was faithful in Marriage | Isaiah 1:21; |
| Filthiness | Not Gold; uncleanness | Ezekiel 16:36; Ezekiel 22:15; Zephan 3:1; Revelation 17:4 |
| Filthy | Disobedient and Rebellious | Zep 3:1; |
| Fornicator | Lover of Idols | 2 Chronicles 21:11; Ezekiel 16:15; |
| Fuel to the Fire | She which is consumed by the Lord | Ezekiel 21:32; |
| Gomorrah | Spiritual name of Jerusalem; | Isaiah 1:9-10; Jeremiah 23:14; |
| Great City | She which was Great | Jeremiah 22:8; Revelation 11:8; Revelation 17:18; |
| Hagar | The Egyptian Bond Woman; slave girl | Galatian 4:24-25 |
| Harlot | The unfaithful woman | Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 3:1: Ezekiel 16:15; Ezekiel 16:35, 41; Ezekiel 23:19;Ezekiel 23:44; Hosea 2:5; Hosea 4:15; |
| Harlot, Well-favored | Beautiful Adulteress | Nahum 3:4; |
| Heifer | Female Cow | Hosea 10:11 |
| Her with My Name | The Name of Jehovah shall be on her | 1 Kings 11:36; 1 Kings 14:21; 2 Kings 23:27; 2 Chron 12:13; Jeremiah 25:29 |
| Holy City | Sacred | Neh 11:1 |
| Imperious Whorish Woman | Vixen Adulteress | Ezekiel 16:30 |
| Israel After the Flesh | Natural Nation of Israel | 1 Cor 6:18; |
| Jebus | Aboriginal Name of Jerusalem; Trodden | Judges 19:10; 1 Chr 11:4; |
| Jebusi | Trodden inhabitants of Jerusalem | Joshua 18:28 |
| Jebusite | Trodden Amorites | Joshua 15:8; |
| Jerusalem Which Now Is | Earthly Jerusalem | Galatians 4:25 |
| Jeshurun | Symbolic Name of Israel | Deu 32:15, 33:5, 33:26; Isa 44:2; |
| Jews | Those of Judah | Romans 2:17; |
| Jezebel | A type of the False Religion of Adultery and Idols | Revelation 2:20; |
| Killer of the Prophets | Murderer of Those Who Are Sent To You | Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34 |
| Lewd Woman | The Adulteress Wife | Ezekiel 23:44; |
| Married Wife | She who has a husband | Isaiah 54:1 |
| Mistress of Witchcrafts | She who is deceived by Magic | Nahum 3:4 |
| Mocking to All Nations | She who is ridiculed; | Ezekiel 22:4; |
| Mother | She who has born Children | Isaiah 50:1; Hosea 2:5; Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34; Galatian 4:25 |
| Mother of Harlots | Her Children are like her | Revelation 17:5 |
| Mother’s Daughter | The female child; like mother like daughter | Ezekiel 16:45; |
| Mt Sinai | Where the Law Given to Moses | Galatians 4:24-25; |
| Mystery Babylon the Great | The Whore | Revelation 17:5 |
| Oppressing City | The City who is proud and violent | Zep 3:1; |
| Oppression, Wholly | She who has unjust gain; deceitfully obtained | Jeremiah 6:6; |
| Polluted | Trodden Down | Ezekiel 16:6; Zep 3:1 |
| Rahab | The Harlot, spiritual type of Jerusalem | Psalm 89:10; Isaiah 51:9 |
| Rebellious House | She who is disobedient and has become an enemy | Ezekiel 17:1, 24:3; |
| Rejoicing City | Joyous City | Zep 2:15; |
| Reproach to the Heathen | Disgrace to the Gentiles; | Ezekiel 22:4; |
| Salem | Peaceful the pattern and roots of Jerusalem | Genesis 14:18; |
| Seed of Evildoers | Fruit of Ungodliness | Isaiah 1:4; |
| Shalem | Early Name of Jerusalem | Gen 33:18; |
| Sinful Kingdom | A people to be destroyed | Amos 9:8; |
| Sinful Nation | A people led astray | Isaiah 1:4; |
| Sister | Woman with Siblings | Ezekiel 16:46; |
| Sister of Judah | The sister | Jeremiah 3:1; |
| Sister of thy Sisters | Sin runs in the family | Ezekiel 16:45; |
| Slayer of Innocent Blood | The City that Killed Jesus | Jeremiah 26:15; |
| Smitten | To Strike Down | Ezekiel 33:21; |
| Sodom | Spiritual Name for Jerusalem; | Isaiah 1:9-10; Jeremiah 23:14; Ezekiel 16:46-49; Revelation 11:8 |
| Thy Mother’s Daughter | Daughter of a Hittite (terror) | Eze 16:45 |
| Uncleanness | Religious filth | Ezekiel 36:17; |
| Where Our Lord Was Crucified | Jesus was hung on the cross there | Rev 11:8 |
| Whore | Adulteress Idol Worshipper | Ezekiel 16:33-34 |
| Whore, Great | Adulteress Idol Worshipper | Revelation 17:1; |
| Wife | She who is married to Jehovah | Jeremiah 3:20, 31:32; Ezekiel 16:8; Ezekiel 16:32; |
| Woman | The Great City | Ezekiel 23:44; Revelation 17:18 |
| Woman, Removed | Unclean Woman | Ezekiel 36:17; |
| Woman Who Breaks Wedlock | The Unfaithful wife of Jehovah | Ezekiel 16:38; |
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God’s Definition of Eternity! Are there any Limits to What We Can Learn?
(Ver 1.1) Today I want to do something different to stimulate and exercise your mind. I want to get you to thinking of some things that you may have never thought of before. God woke me up last night and taught me some new concepts about eternity that I have never even thought of before. I hesitate to tell people on the Web that God does this to me, because people sometimes think you’re crazy to believe things like God can actually talk to you and you can actually hear and understand Him. However, if this is not possible, then we have found something else that God can’t do, He can’t communicate with humans. Actually if you have ever read the Bible you have seen too many examples of God speaking to Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah and I could go on and on. Today, the problem with most people is that they are not spiritually aware enough to realize when God is saying anything to them. Knowing how God talks to you is the key to hearing from God and I will not comment on that any further. So this is what the Spirit of God said to me, “Are there any limits to what you can know?” I took this to mean will there ever come a time when we are in eternity with God that we will reach a point that there is nothing else for us to learn? I mean forever is a very long time. Humans cannot even fathom the definition of what eternity is. After we go beyond billions or trillions, most people stop trying to process what those kinds of numbers mean in our brain. We have no reference point to the experience of eternity that even comes close to what forever means. You see my computer has a 1 terabyte hard drive in it. That is a far cry from my first computer hard drive of 10 megabytes. However, even 1 terabyte is nowhere close to having an infinite hard drive space available to you. I mean even Google doesn’t have infinite hard drive storage space. We are born on this planet with a limited perspective and we may live even 100 years and this is nothing compared to eternity. It would be like one cell out of every cell in our universe combined. Even Adam or Methuselah in the O.T. never lived to be older than 1000 years old. Methuselah the oldest recorded living man in the Bible, only lived 969 years. This is a nothing numbers compared to living in eternity. So there is no human on the earth that has any clue of how long eternity is. So here is the key question today to challenge you to think; how much could you learn if you had forever to do it in? Are there any limits to knowledge? Are there any limits to what God knows?
Isa 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
As you can clearly see, the Bible says that God lives in eternity. I looked up the word “eternity” to see the definition and it means “forever” or “without end”. Eternity is clearly just a concept to us that we have great difficulty in comprehending fully. God exists outside of the realm of time and yet sent Jesus Christ into the realm of time at the perfect time to accomplish what God needed to accomplish. So I believe that the dimension of time does not limit God. Einstein theorized that as we approach the speed of light that time would slow and then finally stop. I find that very interesting since the Bible says that God is Light! That is pretty awesome stuff to think on.
So here is where I’m going to start to get a bit controversial, surprise, surprise. Does God know everything? Is there anything that God does not know? These are almost trick questions. Because I do not know, if we have the answers to these questions. Most people believe that God knows everything. After all only He is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient to name three known qualities used to describe God. The term omniscient is a theological term that is used to describe God and it can actually mean “All knowing”. God can be described as having an infinite amount of capacity for knowledge and this is probably a very good thought. But, I also think that this is dependent upon your perspective. God certainly is All Knowing concerning us and the rest of His creation. The Bible certainly says that God knows some amazing details about us. God knows our every thought and with over 6 billion people on the planet, I do not understand how this is even possible. The Bible says God knows how many hairs are on our heads at any given time. Do you have a clue of how many hairs are on your head? Unless you are totally bald, you do not have a clue. This proves that God is the most detailed oriented being that I can conceive of. So what is the controversial part of my thought process today? If God holds the capacity to know everything that is possible to know but still does not know everything, then there is a possibility of an infinite amount of knowledge being available to learn. If God knows an infinite amount of information already, then there is nothing that He does not know. Which one is it? Either way, we have to conclude that there is no limit to what we can know and learn in eternity. Maybe this will come out clearer as I go forward; probably right now I have a bunch of people just scratching their heads and saying what did he just say?
Let me see if I can rephrase what I tried to say, either God already has infinite knowledge or the realm of knowledge is infinite and God has the capacity to know it all. I really cannot say which one is true using the Bible. If you say that God knows everything already, then you have to conclude there is no creativity in anyone else. Every book that can be written has already been written by God. Every song that can be written has already been written by God. Only God has creation power and the rest of us are just puppets imitating God’s preconceived ideas. That would mean that the Bible says we are made in his image but we do not have His power to create so the Bible lied. I haven’t found a Bible verse to describe any of this per say. If you know of one or two, please let me know. I would love to learn. I did see some verses in Job that describes God as having “perfect knowledge”. The term “perfect” would tend to mean or at the least imply “whole” or “complete” knowledge.
All I know is somewhere something or someone has to be infinite. Either the amount of knowledge available is infinite or the knowledge of God is infinite. Otherwise it would mean somewhere in the course of eternity we could potentially reach a point of the end of all learning and come to a state of knowing everything. If this could occur, what would we do then? Can you even wrap your mind around this deep subject today? Here is what I took away from what God said to me last night. There is no limit to how much you can know, because there is no limit to the availability of God’s knowledge. You see I totally believe that God has the capacity of knowing everything. I totally believe that God’s knowledge compared to my knowledge right now is a like a comparison of all of the water in all of the oceans in the world compared to my single drop of water, if that much. But, I also believe that eternity is a long, long time. So the bottom line is no matter how much we learn even in a trillion years of time, we would have just begun to learn what God can teach us.
Also God when he spoke to Abraham told him that his seed would be as the stars of the heaven or as the sands on the seashore (Gen 22:7). In other words more than you could count right now. However, if you had eternity to count them all, is it possible to do it. This has to be a finite number, just a very big number. Do you understand big number concepts? Is there any limit to how high you can count? I don’t think so, if you have the time to do it.
So I probably just turned off a bunch of religious or non-intellectual type people. I seemed to imply that there could be stuff that God still has left that He can learn and I certainly do not have any Bible verses to demonstrate or confirm this logic. But I will tell you this also; this is what else God said to me in the middle of the night. He told me to think about the number “Pi”. If you are not a math type person you probably do not know what I’m talking about. The number “Pi” is a number used in math and geometry in relation to measuring circles. A circle is a symbol of completeness. A circle could also be a symbol of infinity, since as long as you want to go around in the circle it will let you keep going. A circle is a line without ends. So a circle could possibly be representative of a picture of God. Here is the Web definition for “Pi”:
Pi: the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle
Pi is an irrational number, in decimal places it never ends and never repeats with any know pattern. To me I can see Pi as a picture of God. He has no end and never does He do the exact same thing exactly twice. However, God does utilize patterns to repeat things in the natural realm from the spiritual realm so we have some additional complexity to ponder. If anyone ever told you that studying the Bible was easy, they lied to you. What do you think of the concepts behind pi and how this number relates to God? So I believe that God invented math for us to learn about natural concepts and laws that we can apply to spiritual things. If you can learn from them and apply them correctly you will begin to see how they relate to other spiritual things. I use math laws in my Bible interpretations all the time. God taught me this method so I stick with it. So here is the problem that I am faced with, Pi is an infinite never ending number. No matter how many digits that you calculate the number Pi to, the number never ends. This is the definition of eternity again, demonstrated to us in the concept of a never ending number. When I was in the 10th grade I memorized Pi to like 8 or 9 digits; to me “Pi” was 3.141592653…” and I thought I was doing pretty well. Later in life when computers came along, I learned that “Pi” had been calculated out in the astronomical realms of numbers. However, even with all of this work they were not any closer to the end of the number than I was. Why did God create infinite things like this? Never ending number concepts? I believe it was to show us that there is no limit to what we can still learn in eternity. I mean think about it, if God can create a number that He cannot find the end of; that tells me that we have something truly amazing in store for us. So I probably offended someone again saying God could not solve Pi, but yet God would have to change the definition of Pi or round it off somewhere in order to stop computing the number. Do you understand this? God, who has far greater computing power than any computer we have on our planet, could spend the rest of eternity at calculating Pi and still never reach the end. That is the definition of something that is infinite, yes? So can an infinite God solve an infinite math problem? I think that is a very tough question for me to even try to think of how to answer. You see I think that an infinite God who lives in eternity could calculate Pi forever and still never reach the end of the number. There would always be another digit to add to the list of numbers. Wow, that is very deep, I know. So we can still look at this subject in different ways. We can say that the possible realm of knowledge is infinite or we can say that God already holds infinite knowledge. To me if God held infinite knowledge then God had Pi solved before we were given it. However, this means by definition that Pi is solvable and is not an infinite number. Then there is the concept of writing books or songs that I mentioned earlier. Is there a limit to the number of books that God could write? Is there a limit to the number of songs that can be written by us? I personally do not believe that there are a finite number of songs available for us to create. Do you understand the complexity behind these concepts that God has given to us? They are truly amazing, but yet they are nothing compared to what God has in store for us in the future:
1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
When you start to think differently you begin to see old Bible verses in new enlightening ways. Is it beginning to get into your heart like it is mine? I think if it is, then we have only scratched the tip of the iceberg of knowing who God is and how much He loves us. Be a thinker, but begin to see God as He sees us. The Bible says that we have the mind of Christ, so begin to think like God. I know that I can hardly wait for the eternity of good things to come from God. I hope that I at least stimulated your mind to think today, like God did my mind last night. You may not agree with the things that I said, but that is OK also. Today was not a lesson on how to be saved so it really doesn’t matter that much. Today’s lesson was designed to get you to think eternally, infinitely, as a course for your future existence with God. If you disagree with anything that I said I’ll read it, but I probably won’t respond to the negative words of critics’ unless you can show me some Bible verses. You see I don’t know everything and I am perfectly willing to change to be right as long as I can see it in the Bible. In the meantime I’ll do my own search of the Bible using my computer to see if I can learn anything about what God has challenged me to think on. Mathematics is full of never ending number sequences and there must be a reason why God created them to be this way, so it is a challenge for you and I to find out why. Be continually blessed and encouraged in growing in the knowledge of Him.
Is there Life after Death? The Bible Evidence for Understanding Spirits!
(Ver 1.4) This is a serious Bible lesson on the important Bible subject of understanding death. Today I will discuss a very basic foundational subject but also an extremely important Bible truth in an attempt to make a potentially complex subject as simple as possible. I always like to emphasize that the Bible is a highly complex spiritual book of information that the natural human mind is incapable of understanding. This is the greatest and number one problem with why people read the Bible and do not understand what it says. God is the most intelligent being in both the Spiritual and Natural realms. God designed the Bible in an intelligent spiritual manner to give man the right to be wrong in everything that they believe. There is really no clear evidence for anything in the Bible, because people can put their own interpretations upon every verse and ignore all the other verses that do not fit with what they want to believe and thus they come to the conclusions that they desire to hold on to. That is a pretty stupid way of interpreting the Bible, but people do it every day. By not being consistent and by not taking every related verse into account they have concluded some vastly erroneous teachings. Today’s lesson surrounds what the Bible says about “Is there Life after Death?” This is obviously a highly controversial subject with a wide variety of opinions to the possible outcomes. Here is the difficulty that most of us face, none of us have died and come back to tell what happened to us after we died. The majority of dead people on the earth are dead and have not been able to return form the dead to tell anyone about the after life experiences. And if anyone did die and come back would anybody believe them, since they would hold no evidence or pictures to convince anyone of what they were trying to tell the rest of the world? Our experience of death would only help to motivate us personally and would not have a real effect on most other people, especially to those who do not believe like we do.
So what then do we do? I believe that we are given a Bible by God for the basis for all of our knowledge and for what we believe in our faith. If what you believe is not based upon what the Bible says, then you really have no ability to be confident of anything that you believe in. Faith is believing in something that we have no physical proof or evidence of possessing. The Bible also informs us that our faith is based upon the Word of God. So a Christian should be most concerned with what does the Bible say and reveal to me on the subject of death and the afterlife experience. Here is why I am addressing this subject today. I had a very deceived individual who believes that when people die, they go into a state of sleep, until wakened for judgment day. These types of believers do not believe in the existence of hell or eternal damnation or punishment. They want to believe that after this life there are no consequences for what we do here on the earth, how we believe, or whether we make Jesus our Lord and Savior or not. According to them those that are not saved by God are eliminated from future existence, they will have no consciousness of ever having been here on the earth or for ever existing at any time on this planet. This type of teaching is one that I have heard proclaimed for many years. It is called a doctrine of “Soul Sleep” or a “Spirit Sleep” theology. They claim that everyone who dies goes to sleep until God chooses for the time of judgment. These people have many Bible verses that they believe that they can stand on and I do not deny that these verses exist. However, I do deny their weak erroneous interpretations of them and how they have twisted them to determine how they use and apply them with their natural minds to drive others into believing the lie of an eternal solution for an end of natural life with no eternal consequences. This is a classic example of ignorance being combined with stupidity going to seed and being multiplied into deception. God says in Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”. Therefore what you don’t know will end up killing you and sending you to hell. You better make sure you know the truth before you believe something someone tells you is the truth. The only way you can be insured is for you to read the whole Bible and make sure there are no other verses that conflict with what someone is telling you is the truth.
So rather than telling you about all of the verses that they have misinterpreted, I want to focus mostly in on verses in the Bible that will put holes in their theological erroneous teachings. These are the verses that they purposely ignore or are forced to explain away so that they can hold on to their fantasies. Let’s look at some of these verses about death and life after death today and you can be the judge and see what the Bible is saying for yourself.
Deu 34:5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.
This verse in the Bible is very plain. Moses we are told died a physical death exactly like every other human on this planet in our history has done also. I guess I should clarify that last statement, because there are two men in the O.T. that did not experience death and the Bible says God took them and these were Enoch and Elijah. The Bible says it is appointed unto man, once to die and then comes the judgment (Heb. 9:27). This is where people like to believe that the in between natural death and the time of judgment is a state of nothingness, because the Bible says there is nothing or does it? People need to realize that God does not tell you everything in any one place anywhere in the Bible. You MUST put the puzzle pieces together correctly in order to have a valid interpretation of the Word of God. Let’s confirm that Moses died before we go any further:
Deu 34:7 And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
We can again clearly see that God says Moses lived a 120 years on the earth when he died a natural death. I find that it is very interesting what this verse says. It does not say Moses died of any illness, weakness, infirmity or even any natural cause does it? It says that Moses was physically strong and had good eye sight. Oh well, I guess I won’t go there and create any more controversy. Can we at least agree that Moses died? So then according to many people who believe in Soul Sleep, Moses is now in spiritual “la, la land” of non-existence. I assume that this is a state of blissful nirvana or an unconscious state of rest according to what they want to believe occurs after death. I hope that you can see this is pretty crazy to believe this way, you have to ignore so much of the Bible to believe wrong. Here is the main reason that I call this an erroneous teaching. Please read this carefully:
Luk 9:28 And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.
Here we have an account written by God in the New Testament that declares that Jesus went up on a mountain to pray. He took with Him, Peter James and John. So we have 3 key witnesses to what is about to happen next. Is this a real story? You bet it is a real story. God is not a liar. So Jesus is praying and what happens?
Luk 9:30 And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias:
Uh oh? Moses is there with Jesus on top of the mountain and he is supposed to be asleep somewhere in la, la land. I really thought he was supposed to be sleeping until judgment day according to what these people care to try to teach us. Do you understand how wrong some people’s teaching can beceom? Here Moses died at least 1500 years before Jesus came along and he appears with Elijah to talk to Jesus. I guess God must have awakened them from their sleep? Maybe God sent a princess to kiss Moses so that she could awaken him from deep spiritual sleep? Do you understand what happens when you deviate from the Bible? You have to start making stuff up and your lie is then as good as anyone else’s lie. Let’s stop here and think about this logically. If Moses and Elijah were asleep for the last 1500 years or so, and do not remember their life on the earth and were just awakened for some quick purpose of God, what would they have to talk about with Jesus? Do you think that Jesus was the only one talking here and they were just getting filled in on the updates of the last 1500 years? You see there are certainly ways to explain away what the Bible says if you do not wish to embrace it. However, it is so obvious to me that since Moses and Elijah were present with Jesus on the mountain top, they were clearly not asleep and could remember things to talk about. It would be a very far stretch to say that they were ever spiritually asleep either. So you believe whatever you want to believe, I’ll still stay with the truth.
So let me approach this subject of Soul Sleep from a different angle now. When you are asleep naturally speaking, are you ever aware of anything that happens? What about your dreams? Do dreams ever happen, do you ever remember them? Are there accounts in the Bible of anybody dreaming? You should probably understand if you have ever read the Bible that there are many people who have heard from God in a dream. Do you understand this? You have the story of Joseph in Genesis 37:5. Then in Matthew 1:20 we have another man named Joseph who heard from God in a dream about marrying the virgin Mary. So people do have dreams and people can remember them and hear from God even when they are physically asleep. So what is the problem? How do you ever remember a dream? After all you were sleeping. That is a million dollar question to ponder. You see your spirit inside your body never sleeps. Even when your body is asleep your spirit is awake and capable of hearing from God. Interesting isn’t it? The Bible says in Psalms 121:4 that God neither slumbers nor sleeps. This tells us very clearly God does not get tired. A spiritual being never needs a nap, to rest up or regain spiritual strength. The problem with most people, they think that man is somehow different from God and this is their downfall. Because they think naturally, they come to the wrong conclusions concerning spiritual truths. This is the most significant way that God keeps people from seeing what the Bible really says. In their minds they have the wrong basis of reference or the wrong perspective on things that were written. If you are driving in a car, when you start out going in the wrong direction, it is sometimes very difficult to get to the right destination. So it is with Bible interpretation. So people forget that the Bible says that Adam was made in the image and likeness of God. God said “Let US make man in our image after our likeness…”. When you don’t believe what the Bible says in one spot it makes it doubly easier to disbelieve another spot. So my point is if God (who is a Spirit) does not sleep or nap, the spirit of man does not sleep or nap either, because we were made in the image and likeness of God. If you want to see what the Bible really says, sometimes you have to change your perspective. Sometimes this requires you seeing things like God sees them. Sometimes it requires you to see things the way others see them around you. This is just part of the complexity of understanding the Bible. So why did I go through the explanation of dreams while you are in a natural sleep? It was only to show you that your spirit never sleeps and that is the only way that you would remember what you dreamed. So you decide what you want to believe, I’m still going to stay with what the Bible actually says.
So those who teach fictitious “Soul Sleep” have a predicament , we can clearly see that Moses died literally hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus came along and yet there he was appearing with Jesus to talk about spiritual subjects with the transfigured Lord. We also should know that Judgment Day is not coming for many more hundreds of years in the future when this event occurs. Where has Moses been previously and where will Moses wait until the Day of Judgment finally comes. Think about it, where is Moses during all of this past and future time? You first have to understand that Moses is a triune being. That just means that Moses is a spirit being that has a soul that lives in a body. When his body died his spirit and soul left his body. We know this from other Bible verses like this one:
Jas 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
As you can see the Bible says that man is a spirit. The absence of the spirit from the body deems the body to be dead. The death of the body means that the spirit is no longer present in the body. Either way there is a clear separation of the two. When you go to a funeral and look in the casket you are not looking at the person, just the body that this person used to lived in. So as you look into the casket do they appear to be awake or asleep? If you are bright at all you have to say they look asleep. So all of the Bible verses in the Bible that “Soul Sleep” teachers like to grab hold of and use are from our perspective on what death is and looks like. The body is asleep and the spirit has departed and gone somewhere else. The spirit must still exist and must be awake because it is made in the image of God. So let’s look at another lesson of what God used Paul to tell us:
Php 1:23 For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:
People who choose to believe in a “Soul Sleep” ignore verses like this one in the Bible. Here is Paul writing to the Philippian Church and he is speaking of a decision that he is trying to make. He is trying to determine if he should stay here in his body and help them or to leave his body and go be with Christ. Uh oh? That is a pretty strong indication that there is no sleep time in between death and what occurs afterwards. Paul calls death for a Christian something that is a “FAR BETTER” thing than staying here physically and living on the earth. So what would make death far better for anyone that would only go to sleep until judgment day? Sleep is not better than being awake, alert, aware and conscious, is it? If you think it is you are a vastly deceived individual. Christians, who die according to what Paul just said, leave their bodies and go into the spiritual realm of heaven to be with Christ. That is what would be far better than being here. You walking on the streets of gold, you beholding the face of the one that died for you, you standing before the throne of the living God and you surrounded by all of the angels, and your Christian relatives and friends that have gone before you. That is the definition of a “FAR BETTER” time if you ask me. That is the only explanation of this verse that makes any sense to me. Seeing my earthly father again, seeing my son again, seeing my Heavenly Father for the first time, seeing Jesus Christ and the nail prints in his hands and feet, that is what gives me hope. Spiritual sleep is not hope, it is nothing to look forward to, it is nothing that you can call better even a little bit. What is FAR BETTER to you? How do you define “FAR BETTER”? It could make all the difference in the world.
So I could go on and give you many other Bible verses, that talk about death, heaven, hell and other related subjects, but I have gone long enough for today. I pray that you will take the truth of God’s word and hold fast to it so that no man will deceive you with lies from the enemy. I have found that some people are not capable of being helped. No matter how much you try to show them. These are what I call “Concrete Christians”; they are thoroughly mixed up and firmly set in their ways. They do not read the Bible with an open mind to allow the Spirit of God to teach them anything. They do not wish to see the truth, because they are happy with their perception of reality. They have extreme tunnel vision and only see what they want to see. Whatever you do, do not become as one of these types of people. Always stay open to change, but always base your change upon the Bible only. It saddens my heart tremendously when I encounter people like this if they are that easily deceived then they are open to other deception as well. The Bible says that there will be many in that day that come before Christ and say Lord, didn’t we do this and that in your name and Jesus will look at them and say depart from me for I never knew you. Do not be one of these! May God Bless you and help you to see the truth of His glorious Word!
Understanding Seeds in the Bible! We Are the Seed of Abraham! Part 10
(Ver 1.3) Today I am writing Part 10 in the series of lessons that I have been doing on the spiritual concepts and laws surrounding God’s designed Seed planting principles. If you have not read this series from the beginning, I would strongly recommend that you start with “Part 1”. If you have been reading this series, then welcome back. When you get a hold of this teaching it will change a lot of what you think and know about God and the Bible. The concepts given in the Bible about seeds cannot be overly simplified because they are vastly complex in how God applies them throughout the Bible. The concepts of seeds are overlapping and run in parallel at the same time. Seeds concepts are truly woven threads in the fabric of God’s truth found throughout the Bible. The subject of seeds is a common theme given to us in every part of the Bible. You can find seeds mentioned in the beginning of Genesis 1 all the way to references to seeds in the last chapter of the Bible in Revelation 22. Seeds are everywhere in the Bible if you know what to look for and if you understand the concepts behind them. You see in Revelation 22:2 God speaks of the “Tree of Life” on each side of the river flowing from the throne of God. These “Trees of Life” produce 12 kinds of fruit. If you recall we learned that Fruit comes from planting seeds, naturally and spiritually. You plant a seed, you get a tree and then it produces the fruit to produce more fruit trees. It is a simple concept, yet so profound. So who are these symbolic fruit trees in Revelation 22? Do you recall reading back in Genesis 2 about the first mention of the Tree of Life? God created a Garden for man. In the garden God placed two trees, named Adam and Eve, I mean the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. It would appear to me that God’s plan was for man to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever, since this is the way it is described to end up in Revelation 22. So what can we learn here? We learned from the Parable of the Sower that the Word of God was the seed of God. We learned that the hearts of men and women in the world were the soil where seeds are planted. Let’s stop right there and analyze that statement. What is a Garden? A garden is where you plant your seeds to grow your fruit. Genesis 2 describes vast amounts of seed principles being applied by God. We have a symbolic Garden and we have 2 trees that are symbolic of something also. One tree is OK to eat from and one tree is not OK to eat from. Sounds like a good time for making the right decision. Since Adam did not make the right decision we still see that God says I will make the right decision and it will end up the way that I planted it to end up. After all it is my garden and my seed. Are you beginning to see the concepts being given?
When you begin to understand just a little bit about seeds you can begin to see that God is smarter than us all put together. I am a firm believer that God’s stated beginning in Genesis 1 & 2 was a symbolic representation of how He wanted it to end up when our time on this planet is completed. We know that God is the giver of the “Good” Seed. We know that we (the people) are God’s Soil or Garden. That would make God the Ultimate Farmer! Do you understand this?
Jas 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
Here is an amazing verse of scripture that describes God’s Farm System. The Lord God is described as being the “husbandman”. This Greek word translated as husbandman in the KJV Bible means “a worker of land” or literally a “farmer”. We can again see in this verse that Fruit is the desired anticipated outcome of God’s laborious seed planting. God sowed the good seeds to produce the good fruit from the earth. This verse is very symbolic in nature. The “Husbandman” is the Land Owner who Works the Soil to plant His seeds in. We can clearly understand that God owns the Earth, but that is only natural soil. God is not talking about a natural crop of corn in this verse. God is referring to a spiritual crop of fruit. But, realize that seeds do not produce fruit, seeds produce trees that produce fruit. This is a very critical part of the seed principle. This is why I called Adam and Eve trees that had no fruit in Genesis 2 and 3. Adam however, chose the wrong seeds and allowed the wrong fruit to grow, sinned and died. Adam in effect sold his birthright for some wrong fruit to Satan. We (the church) are now the purchased possession of God, by the redemptive price that He has paid with His own blood. Christians have been purchased, redeemed without money the Bible says. So we are God’s gardens that have allowed His Seed into our hearts to grow and produce fruit. We produce the Fruit that God is after. So when you read Revelation 22:2 and see the Trees of Life on each side of the river flowing from the Throne of God, we can understand that we are these trees producing this fruit every month of the year for an eternity to come. That is pretty cool stuff, if you ask me. If you can see it you will think it is pretty amazing also. Only by rightly dividing the Word of God have I come to these conclusions. By letting the Bible interpret itself and by understanding simple spiritual concepts like Seeds, Soil, Gardens, Planting, Sowing, Rain, Watering, Fruit, Reaping and Harvests.
So that was a quick introduction to an overview of how to apply the knowledge that we have gleaned from the Bible subject concerning Seeds. Like I told you before there are over 250 scriptures in the KJV Bible that directly mention the word “seed”. In many modern translations the literal meaning of the word “seed” is translated as offspring, children, or some other word that loses the true meaning that God was trying to get you to see. So while I do not try to tell you what to do, that is why I do not read many translations. They take too many liberties with God’s Word and change it too much. The best translation would be no translation, but since I do not speak Hebrew or Greek, I just look up the words in the dictionary and do the best that I can with God’s help. So the best translation of the Bible is the one that is the most literal and I can’t tell you which one that is, I just know some that they are not. People need to realize that God could have used any word that He wanted to and He picked “Seed” to describe these things we have been talking about. I guess translators think that God is stupid and He did not know the right word to use. Plus I use the KJV version because it is a FREE version of the Bible that is readily available to everyone without charge, limitations or restrictions. Jesus said freely you have received so charge the heck out of everybody and get all that you can. I think that is what some Bible manufacturers think, because this is the way that they act. It is only for the money they think. Oh, well I guess I’ll get off my soap box and keep teaching on the subject of seeds. Let me briefly review two concepts that I have touched on before, but this time using some new scripture verses.
Heb 11:11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
Hebrews chapter 11 is one of the most important chapters in the Bible. But most people do not see what it says. The chapter is dominated by one Subject and that is “Faith”. We can learn that even though God did not reveal “Faith” in the Old Testament, He definitely made it a determining factor to what people received in their life. This chapter goes through many examples of Bible faith and in this verse we are told of Sarah’s faith in God’s Word. Sarah believed that God was faithful because He had promised them a child. Now she was 90 years old when this child came, but yet God was not too late was He? Many times God’s timing is not your timing, but yet we should not question God, just believe that it will happen like He said. In this verse there is the direct mention of “seed”. Sarah was able to “Conceive” Seed. Did you know that this is how that Mary got pregnant with Jesus also? These were examples of conceiving two different types of “seeds”, but yet the end results were both the same. Sarah conceived natural sperm of her husband Abraham’s natural seed. While Mary conceived the “Word of God”, God’s also known as spiritual seed. Both women were required to believe that it would happen like it was told to them. Both women heard the message, before it actually happened to them. Neither woman had any evidence or proof that it would ever happen, did they? There was no proof? This is a pattern of how to receive anything from God. If you want a baby and have not been able to conceive a child, here is your answer. God does not show any favoritism to anyone! God is no respecter of person! What God did for Sarah and for Mary, He will do for you if you choose to believe also.
So I got off the subject of the Seed of Abraham. That is what this lesson was supposed to be about when I started. I guess God wanted to talk to somebody out there and tell them there was hope. before I more on completely I also want to point out that God can exachange one seed type for the other by the lessons of Sarah and Mary. What God has created in the natural can still happen by an equivalent type of substance usage or exchange from the spritual realm. A spiritual seed can replace a natural seed and still give the same result. Let’s move on to an example of this using the seed of Abraham. The Bible clearly tells us that Jesus Christ came into the world as the Seed of Abraham. Let’s prove that statement by reading this verse and see what God reveals:
Heb 2:16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
The Bible is so complex, that it is impossible to teach everything that just one verse says in a short lesson like this. Why would God mention that Jesus was not born or created as an angel? That is a much more complex subject that I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned because I cannot talk about it in this lesson. It only gives you something new to think about. Learn to ask God questions when you read the Bible and you just may be amazed when He shows you the answers. So Jesus was not an angel, just load that basic fact into your mind for a future reference to a new unkown question. However, Jesus was born the “Seed of Abraham”. We need to review the basic seed concepts again that we have previously learned that should be firmly established in you by now. We learned that a man is a physical being that has “Seed” within himself. I showed you several times now that when Abraham paid tithe, his future descendant Levi was reported to have also paid the tithe at the same time. This was because the physical future seed Levi was in his great grandfather Abraham. If you do not recall this you should go back and review the earlier lessons, because this is a very critical piece of spiritual information to fully grasp. The principle revealed to us in this lesson was that every natural descendant of Abraham did exactly what Abraham did because they came from Abraham’s physical seed. Now that would be really good information if you were a natural seed of Abraham and I’ll tell you why soon. What about the rest of us on earth? We were called Gentiles by the laws of flesh in the world that were not born from natural seed of Abraham? Are we all left out because we were not born from the natural seed of Abraham? We will find out as we continue.
Keep in mind that the Bible is so much more complex than you give it credit to be. Also keep in mind that God is smarter than you and I are. His ways are not your natural ways, so it makes it very difficult for us to grasp these very spiritual things being taught to us. Let’s turn to Galatians and learn something brand new about seeds:
Gal 3:19 Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
You can see that this is a verse with wide seed applications attached to it. We talked earlier about that the word seed can either be singular or plural and you really have a very difficult time in determining which one it is by only reading on the surface. The word in this context is clearly singular. Jesus Christ is again called the Seed of Abraham as we can see. This verse tells us clearly of all the natural seeds that were “IN” Abraham, only one of them carried the hope of the promise that was given to Abraham. This was a very literal one in some several millions of future natural seeds, type of prophecy. God singles out and separates “One Seed” to be the “Chosen Seed”. We know that this Seed was God Himself. Knowing this now doesn’t sound very good for all the other natural seeds that came from Abraham. Can you see how the Bible presents us with puzzles and paradoxical predicaments? We read in one place that being a seed of Abraham seems to be a good thing, but now we read that only one of the seeds actually carried the promise. Wow are things getting complicated or what?
Gal 3:18 For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
Let’s back up one verse in Galatians and see some of the context of what is being discussed around this subject of the “Chosen Seed”. I’ll try to stay on subject, according to what we just read in verse 19, we are talking about the Seed called Jesus Christ who we can see in this verse was promised the inheritance. So the inheritance was not promised to every seed, just the One! That is a pretty complex thing to think about and it can become a point of confusion, if we are not careful. What is an inheritance? Do you understand this concept? Have you ever seen or been to a lawyer’s office who reads someone’s last will and testament? Someone had to die in order for there to be an inheritance available to anyone. Do you understand this? This will certainly get more complicated than you can imagine when I tell you who died. Who died to leave an inheritance to the Chosen Seed? If you guessed that the Chosen Seed died you would actually be right! God gave Himself to be the sacrifice for man’s sin. God became the Chosen Seed of Abraham. This Seed died and was planted into the natural ground for 3 days and rose up spiritually alive again forever. God is the only one that I know of that is capable of experiencing death and then coming back to life to inherit that which He had left as an inheritance. I don’t know if you understand these concepts or not, but I know they are staggeringly powerful spiritual laws in action. Do you see how God used seed concepts and laws in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
What does all of this have to do with you and I? How does it affect us personally in the church? How do I apply seed information to me if I am not a natural seed of Abraham? I think that is what interests many people, what is the bottom line for me today? That is where I want to get to now. If you are a true Christian, a born again believer in Christ, then it has everything to do with you.
Gal 3:22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
As you can see in this following verse of Galatians 3, the promise was by the faith of Jesus Christ that it might be given to us who believe. Do you see why I included the scripture about Sarah? Do you see how she was given a promise by God and trough her faith in His promised words, she conceived seed? God has implemented a system within Christianity that is based totally and completely upon faith and seeds. Let’s look at Faith in the terms of “Seed” concepts briefly. If you went to your garden and planted some seeds in it, did you have any faith when you plant your seeds? Do you believe that what you are doing is going to result in anything good in the future? You see if you did not have any faith in these seeds you would not have planted any of them in the first place. A seed is not a magic potion; you do not plant them and poof there they are like some magic bean stalk! Faith is never a Jack in the Bean stalk reality or fantasy. It always takes time and care to develop and produce that which was planted. So farming is a faith lesson. God planted a seed and expected a harvest. That is the definition of what faith is in a nutshell; believing in a harvest by only planting seeds in the ground. Remember that natural seeds are invisible substances when placed in the ground. You see nothing for many days and only believe they are there by faith.
Are you a believer today? Then you believe in God’s Seed principles. Even though you have never seen Jesus personally, you believe that He is faithful who has promised. The Bible says “Why stare ye into heaven? This same Jesus that you saw go up into heaven, will come back down in the same way” (Acts 1:11). Believing only in the words of angels written down in a book with no basis of proof and no physical evidence that you can take to court, that is what faith is. God’s Word is the Seed, remember? If you believe God’s Word it will conceive in your spirit the same as it did for Mary. No, you won’t have a virgin birth, God did not promise you that, but you can go into the Bible and see what He did Promise you and believe for that.
Gal 3:7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
This verse near the beginning of Galatians 3 makes a declaration that is not widely understood. As you can see this verse is addressed to the Church of Jesus Christ. How can a widely Gentile congregation of people be called the children of Abraham? If you look up the definition of the words, it actually calls Abraham our “father”. I thought God was our Father? Here is another perplexing puzzle given to us in the Bible. You see there is NO WAY that I am a natural descendant of Abraham. I was not born of the natural nation of Israel. But, yet God still calls Abraham my father. People obviously just ignore verses like these in the Bible, I guess? Since I am not a natural child of Abraham that only leaves me to be a spiritual child of Abraham. Do you understand this logic? There are only two realms of existence and these are the created natural realm and the original spiritual realm. If you are a living born again Christian on this earth you exist within both of these realms simultaneously. If you are not a Christian you only exist in the physical realm until you die physically. If you look at the context of this verse you can see that Abraham was justified by faith. Abraham believed God, Galatians 3:6 says to us. So this means that we have also been justified by the same faith that Abraham possessed. Not just believing in God, but believing God came to the earth personally and died for your sins and was raised from the dead. This is faith in God’s personal accomplished works and His Words.
Gal 3:14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
You should make a valid attempt at understanding every verse in this chapter of Galatians. It describes who you are and reveals how you became what you are in very clear in-depth terminology. Let’s start by realizing that Abraham was extremely blessed by God. The natural descendants of Abraham have always been extremely blessed by God. The natural nation of Israel has controlled vast amounts of the world’s wealth ever since they left Egypt and took all they could carry. But, this verse says that the blessings of Abraham should come upon us, the Gentiles. How did this occur? It could only occur by you getting born again by your faith in Jesus Christ. Now that makes you of the same faith as your father Abraham. Again we see a principle of the seed within itself concept being given. Whatever our father spiritual Abraham did, that is also what we who believe God have done. Faith is a spiritual force of the human spirit. So you cannot see Abraham’s faith unless he does something to demonstrate his faith to us. When the lame man was brought to Jesus at the house where they tore the roof up to lower him to Jesus, the Bible says that Jesus could see their faith. So faith can be seen depending upon what people do. So what did our father Abraham do to demonstrate his faith? If you recall you might remember that God changed his name. When God changed his name from Abram to Abraham, Abram could have said that is not who I am and refused to go along with it. The name Abraham means “father of nations”. So by Abraham going around saying his name he confirmed that he was the father of nations even without having the promised child yet. This is another faith lesson that is an excellent story to show you how God works with people. But, this verse also says that the promise to Abraham was for us to receive the Spirit of God by this same faith. I honestly do not know how to explain that verse of scripture, so I just accept it by faith for now and trust the Lord God to reveal it to me later. Let’s skip down to the end of the chapter and see the last verse to wrap this lesson up:
Gal 3:29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
This chapter of Galatians ends with another seed concept and statement. If you are Christ’s, meaning that you belong to Him, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. We again see a reference to the promise of God made to Abraham and to his seed. God promised the Seed of Abraham that He would be the heir. This seed was Jesus Christ. But, now it calls us this same seed at the same time. Since you and I are not Jesus how do we explain what this verse says? That is a very strong question that many people do not fully try to comprehend how that we in the church have become an equal heir with Christ. God again exhibits His extreme intelligence in how He designed these things to work. We are joint heirs with Christ by marriage covenant. The church is the Bride of Christ and if you do not understand this, you should read the series of lessons that I did on this subject. By being joined to Him by marriage covenant we have become one with Him. The law of Genesis says that the two shall be even as one! We have just seen another paradox being presented to us. We have one body or seed but two heirs. We can only resolve this paradox by studying how Eve came from the one body of Adam to make two. So the Bible is complex I know and you may struggle with many of the things that I teach. I hope and pray that you at least go and read all of these verses in your Bible and look up the definitions and meanings of every word you can find and see for yourself if they are true or not. Do not ever take my word for anything, I am a man that makes mistakes, I am capable of failing since I am an imperfect growing Christian just like you are. So the bottom line of today’s lesson was the Church was called the Seed of Abraham. Did you know you were a seed? I bet you are beginning to see that you are a seed in more ways than one. I apologize for covering too much in one lesson and making it so long today. God Bless You, until next time.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on “seeds” you can go to “Part 11“.
Understanding Seeds in the Bible! If You Abide IN ME and My Words Abide IN YOU! Part 8
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 8 of a series of lessons on the concepts and laws surrounding seeds found in the Bible. The Seed is a natural divinely inspired design principle revealed in creation that demonstrates vast complex spiritual revelation. In the previous lessons I taught on the laws surrounding seeds and demonstrated some of their applications given to us in the New Testament. Today I will be doing another one of those lessons about seed applications using the New Testament. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning I would highly recommend that you go back and start reading with “Part 1”. Only by following the series from the beginning will you have much of a chance at understanding what is being taught. Let me review briefly the Major Seed Laws from Genesis 1 that we have already covered:
- Fruit with Seed within Itself!
- Every Seed produces after its Kind!
- Seeds Produce Trees that Produce More Fruit!
- You Always Harvest more than You Sow! Seed Multiplication.
Seed concepts are not widely known in modern America. Very few people plant gardens and grow their own fruit, vegetables and crops. The farm concept was a widely known principle in early Bible days. This is one of the key reasons Jesus taught using these principles so often in the parable lessons that he gave us. In Jesus’ days on earth, if you wanted to eat you better grow it. Today modern children just think everything is magic that appears at the grocery store or at the market and they probably do not even have a clue how it is produced. As a result of this they have lost the essential concepts and laws of planting seeds and getting harvests. To lose sight of these concepts is to lose sight of God’s designed ways. The Seed concept is still a vital part of the End Time Plan of God. God has never lost sight of what seeds are and how seeds work. That is one of the key reasons I have spent this amount of time on this subject. I believe it to be absolutely critical to understand how God works in the spiritual realm and since we do not have any personal experiences in this realm we must rely on the natural realm that God created as a pattern of information for the unseen spiritual realm. Of course you do not interpret nature, you interpret the Word of God, using the Word of God to define the things that you find in nature and this is the key to seeing these Bible truths and hidden spiritual things.
Today I am going to expand on the topic of the “Seed within Itself” Law of Genesis 1 using some fresh New Testament verses. In earlier blogs on this subject we discussed how that Levi had paid tithes in Abraham, because he was a seed of Abraham (Heb. 7:9). Levi was a future descendant of Abraham, yet God counted what Abraham did as applying to what Levi had done. This is one of the most profound truths in the Bible that I have ever seen, yet I have not heard hardly anyone teach on it. The concepts behind this teaching are far reaching and apply to many things in the spiritual realm. Today I am going to give you an example of these concepts. Let’s start the lesson with a verse found in Galatians:
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
There are verses like this one in the Bible that will totally confuse you unless you understand the Seed Laws and apply them correctly. How can Paul have been crucified with Christ, when he was not even there physically with him? I hope that you are beginning to see how this is possible. Paul was not there physically, but he was there spiritually as a future spiritual seed of God. If natural children are natural seeds in the Bible, then spiritual children are also seeds, but of a spiritual kind. Remember everything produces after its own kind. Jesus was called the Seed of Abraham and the Seed of David in the Bible. Paul was calling himself a seed of Christ Jesus. Whatever happened to Jesus is what happened to US who are born again. Since the spiritual birth is a spiritual process that is patterned after the natural birth process we can very easily begin to see that Paul considered himself to be a spiritual descendant of Jesus. Paul looked at Jesus as being his spiritual father. Paul looked to Jesus as being the head of a new spiritual family of God as you and I are also in this family. Here is another verse that use to boggle people’s mind:
Eph 2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
As you can see this verse says that we have been raised from the dead with Christ and that we now sit with Him in heaven. Have you ever been to heaven? If you have then you probably died or saw a spiritual vision of heaven. No, again we see the application of the “Seed within Itself” Law being applied to us in the spiritual realm. Whatever our father Jesus accomplished we accomplished because we were “IN HIM” when He did them. Wow, that is so awesome! That is just a totally RADICAL concept to try to wrap your mind around, isn’t it? Everything that Jesus did, we did if you are born again! This is why in the New Testament you can search and find so many verses in the Bible that describe how we are IN CHRIST, IN HIM, IN WHOM. By finding out what Christ did, you find out what you DID!
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
There are just too many scriptures in the Bible that repeat the “Seed within itself principle for me to give you them all. I think I gave you this one before, but it is so good that I will briefly go over it again. Because the human race was “IN” Adam all must die. Adam’s death passed death to every one of His Seeds. This is the natural picture of the seed within itself concept being described to us very clearly. Then there is a spiritual contrasting truth that is now revealed to us that Jesus who is the Last Adam and that He is the spiritual procreator of a new people that will live. Because Jesus was raised from the DEAD, we have been raised from the dead because we were IN HIM! As in Adam all died, so those IN Christ will all live. You better make sure that you are IN Christ if you want to live spiritually in God’s family!
2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Being IN Christ is essential to understanding your position today in the spiritual realm. Those who are spiritually born again have become a NEW CREATION of Almighty God. This means that we are something that never existed before. Adam had a spirit within his body, but did not have the Spirit of God in union with his spirit. You can see in this verse that translators have added 3 words that are not in the Greek. If you take these out, they basically say the same thing, but review it without these words:
2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man in Christ a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
You can see a subtle difference now. The fact that we are IN Christ has not changed but only because we are IN Christ makes us a new Creature with Christ! God the Almighty Creator became a part of His creation by His designed purpose. I could try to elaborate why this was necessary but I might just cloud the current subject with too much extraneous information, so I’ll pass by that for now. What I want you to focus on is the fact that a man is now IN Christ and that is what also makes him able to participate as being a New Creature!
2Co 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now we can see why Jesus Christ was so different and why Satan did not know what to do with this man. Jesus was born a human male that had the Spirit of God within His Body. This is the SEED within Itself Concept being repeated. God provided Himself the Seed for our reconciliation. These seed concepts are so important for you to understand. It truly helps you to see what was accomplished by God and how He did them. God was IN Christ; the church was IN Christ so we are now IN God. Christ IN Us, the hope of Glory! Now the reverse concept is also applicable in the New Testament Bible. You can see that not only are we IN Christ, but Christ must also be IN us! It is a two way seed street reality. How do you get Christ in YOU?
Joh 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it Abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye Abide in me.
More seed concepts are given in this verse statement of Jesus Christ. You can see the concept of fruit being given. Fruit is the end result that God is looking for in the lifes of every Christian. This fruit will always contain seed to produce more fruit. This is again the seed within itself concept. But we can also see the two way street that I just referred to and how that this works. While the SEED of God is in us, we are in the VINE of God. The VINE represents Christ and we are in Him. We the church, are the branches that produce the fruit as long as we abide in Him, Christ the Vine! But, we the church are also the ones that have the Word of God in Us! If you recall from earlier lessons on this subject, the Word of God was the Seed of God. We have been born again not of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible seed, which is the Word of God (1 Peter 1:23). So we are beginning to see how it is a full circle concept of Seed Salvation. Everything starts with the Word of God and everything continues to exist with the Word of God.
Joh 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done untoyou.
Do you see what Jesus is telling you? Do you see how the seed concepts and seed laws are affecting what you get in life? Do you see how that if you abide in Christ the Vine (the Spiritual Seed of God) and if you allow the Word of God (also the spiritual seed of God) to live in you a natural seed (the Seed within Itself) that you can not only produce fruit but that you can also get your prayers answered by God? Everything hinges upon the Word of God which is the Seed of God that produces the results that God is expecting to harvest very soon. Seeds are everywhere in the Bible. The concepts of seeds are everywhere in the Bible. Different Seed types and seed patterns are repetitious, overlapping and intersecting with each other and this can make them vastly complex to understand. The intelligence of God is so much greater than our minds and therefore we are challenged to come up to a higher dimension of how to think about these spiritual things and God’s Word. May the God of Peace enlighten your minds so that you can comprehend these Seed Principles! God Bless, until next time!
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons you can now continue with “Part 9“.
Where DO BABIES Come From? A Bible Review of the Salvation Process!
(Ver 1.6) This is Part 2 in an essential basic Bible study series on the subject of Savlation and the Spiritual New Birth of God. What is it and how it occurs will be what I teach on today. If you have not read the first lesson I would suggest that you go and start reading with “Part 1” first. I had a Reader(?) try to tell me that being saved is not tied to any certain or specific observable process or stated steps found in the Bible. He told me that “Salvation” was not a formula! He implied that you just can’t ever be assured of your eternal destiny here in this life. He clearly said that there was just no single point event that you could observe of when you were saved. By stating that he implied that there are no given steps, instructions or ways in the Bible to be saved. He implied you can just never know if you are really saved. Call me different, call me unique, call me stupid I don’t care, that is just not what I see that the Bible says. My question to this guy is, “Where do Babies Come From?” Do you know how natural babies are made? Can you ever know if you will have a baby or your wife will have a baby? Does the mother ever know when she is pregnant? Does the mother of a baby know when it is time to deliver a baby? Is there a single point of time reference that goes on the birth certificate of when a natural baby was born? Is not the birth of the natural baby the entry of the child into our natural present world? This may not be a good set of questions to ask a male, but I bet you any mature female could answer these questions correctly. This is what Jesus taught us in John 3:3.
Joh 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
So have you ever thought about what Jesus said here? Jesus says that a man must be “born again” in order to see the Kingdom of God. To be “born again”, implies they were born once naturally already. Doesn’t it, isn’t this what this verse says? However, being born ONCE in the natural is not enough to get you into the Kingdom of God according to the words of Jesus. If I said, I’m going to drive to Detroit again tonight. Doesn’t that tell you that I have already driven to Detroit before? If we are required to be born again, how was the first birth accomplished? What you must realize is that Jesus is speaking of a first birth that is a completely NATURAL process. Was there a formula for making natural babies in the world? This is not a trick question! Is it a difficult or unknown process to create natural babies in the world? Come on and think with me for a moment! God is comparing a natural process to a spiritual process. Or are you spiritually blind enough to believe that THE spiritual things of God are somehow completely different than the natural things that God has created. I believe that many people think that God created natural things to be totally separate and independent from spiritual things and this is just NOT the truth (Rom 1:20). The natural process of things clearly point us to the unseen spiritual process and FORMULA! Naturally created things are clearly patterns of spiritual things that existed prior to God creating our world. God created natural sex as a pattern to spiritual things that you cannot see. Maybe you just don’t know or understand what it means and that is the root of your problem right now. But you should search your Bible and find the truth and then you will see that what I am trying to say is right. Let’s look at some more verses in John 3. When Jesus was speaking about being “born again” He was talking to a man named Nicodemus. This was his response to Jesus’ statement of being born again:
Joh 3:4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Because Nicodemus was a carnally minded man, he was thinking only in natural physical terms. He asks Jesus how can a grown man enter back into his mother’s womb to be born again? Nicodemus obviously was smarter than a lot of men today, at least he knew where babies come from. However, Jesus was speaking of spiritual things and Nicodemus was focused on the natural process of birth only. This is the repeated problem with most Christian in the world today. They think like Nicodemus and not like Jesus when they read the Bible. Do you understand the difference and why it is important to see things from God’s point of view?
Joh 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
So Jesus starts giving us the spiritual answer to Nicodemus’ carnal question. Jesus in this verse speaks of both kinds of births, the first and the second in a contrasting comparison. To be born of water is the natural process of you coming into the world when your mother’s water breaks and she gave birth to you physically. This is the “First Birth” of all humans and it is only natural. However, this natural birth is contrasted with the spiritual birth process of being born of the Spirit. Being born of the Spirit is the “Second Birth” process that a man can experience. Jesus clearly tells us that if you are not born naturally first and then spiritually second you will never see the kingdom of God. Also note that Jesus did not say that you will be born again and again. In other words spiritual brith is a onetime event, just like being born into the natural world is a one time event. Your natural mother does not birth you over and over and like this process when you are born again spiritually it happens only once. Always keep that in mind, that a man is never born again, again. Let’s look at the next verse in John 3:
Joh 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Jesus confirms what I have been saying in this next verse. You can clearly see that only natural mothers give birth to natural babies. You can see that only spiritual mothers give birth to spiritual babies. A natural mother does not birth a spiritual baby and a spiritual mother does not give birth to a natural baby. This is by God’s design and God’s laws of reproduction and procreation. Is this too complicated for you so far? Did you know that there were spiritual women who could give birth to spiritual babies? So I’m going to stop and ask you again, where do natural babies come from? Is there a formula for making natural babies? If there is a known formula for making natural babies then there is also a known formula for making spiritual babies. I am not spiritually blind to this truth like so many in the church! Are you understanding this new spiritual principle that I am attempting to teach you today? All you have to do is to open up your spiritual eyes, stop to look and study your Bible to find out the truth.
Let’ me now teach you that if you were “born again” to become a Christian right now that you had a spiritual birth mother. Did you know that you had a spiritual mother? Do you know that you had a physical natural mother? If you are here in this world reading this article posted on the internet you must have had a natural mother. It is just a biological fact of God’s designed creation. Again I will say if you had a natural mother to be born here in the flesh the first time into the world, then you must have a spiritual mother to be born into the spiritual Kingdom of God. So is there a corresponding spiritual mother for being “born again” into the salvation of the Lord? Of course there has to be a spiritual birth mother. You either never searched your Bible to find her or you must have just ignored her in the Bible and read right over the information. Here is your spiritual birth mother if you are born again:
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the MOTHER of us all.
Who was this letter and this verse written to? You should be smart enough to see that it was written to us in the church of Jesus Christ. If you are “born again”, here is your “spiritual mother” who gave birth to you to be in the new spiritual family of God. God tells us very clearly in a statement written to the church that the “Jerusalem Above” is our spiritual birth mother. Do you understand this? Is this complicated? So where do Spiritual babies come from? Do spiritual babies come into existence the same way that natural babies are conceived? Obviously NOT! Spirits do not have sex with each other, but that does not mean that the spiritual process is not very similar to the natural process symbolically. Natural things are most often used to symbolize spiritual truth that you cannot see. It also does not mean there is not a process to be saved or to be born again. If a natural woman gives birth to a baby and she knows when it occurs then a spiritual mother who gives birth to a spiritual baby would also know when she gave birth to a new child. Before we go there, let’s establish who this woman “Jerusalem Above” is and where this spiritual mother lives using the Bible.
Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
So we now have an established point of reference for the identity of the woman who gives spiritual birth to the church. In this verse in Hebrews God says that this is the “Heavenly Jerusalem”, the city of the Most High God. The location of which contains the throne of God and where the angels of the Lord reside and surround and praise God’s throne. Did you know that a city can be a spiritual woman? Did you even know that this spiritual woman Heavenly Jerusalem existed? You should go back and study the Old Testament and see how many times the Earthly Jerusalem is called a woman, the wife of God, the whore, the harlot. Read, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea to name a few great places to start. See how many times God describes Israel as His wife in covenant. See how many times she is described as being unfaithful and sleeping with other gods. See how many times you can find where God says “I divorce” you for your unfaithfulness to me. What we begin to see is a pattern that a woman to God is a nation of people in covenant with Him. You can clearly see that if Jerusalem Above or Heavenly Jerusalem exists from the verses that I just gave you that this is a pattern of another woman called Jerusalem Below or Earthly Jerusalem. What we have established is that we have a city on the earth called a woman and a city in heaven called a woman, both with the name Jerusalem. You can clearly read about both of these women in more depth by exploring Galatians 4. The Jerusalem Below is said to be a type of Hagar in the O.T. The Jerusalem Above is said to be a type of Sarah. Sarah births the child of promise and Hagar and her son are cast out. Sarah was the older of the two women in the Bible and existed before Hagar. Hagar had a child before Sarah had her child. These are all physical patterns of the spirit realm and the woman that gave birth to the church. So I probably just taught you a bunch of new things that you did not know. Yet they are there in the Bible and you can choose to see them or go ahead and reject them like a spiritually blind man. So let’s get back to the fact does a woman know when she has a baby? A natural woman certainly does, but how about a spiritual woman? Here is what Jesus taught us about this birth process:
Luk 15:10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
As you can see the angels of God rejoice when just one sinner repents. What happens when one sinner repents? They are born again! Isn’t that what we are talking about? Are we talking about a single point in time when a sinner is saved and born again? If the angels rejoice when this occurs, they obviously have observed the second spiritual birth of the man. Where are these angels? You may recall that we read in Hebrew 12:22 that there were an innumerable company of angels in the Heavenly Jerusalem. Are these the angels of God that rejoice over the new birth of one spirit on the earth? You can try to explain it away if you want to, but I am convinced that these are the angels who rejoice. After all it is that city which is said to be our mother and every mother knows exactly when she gives birth to any new baby. People need to be smart enough to learn to put the pieces of the puzzle together correctly. I can see it very clearly, I guess you can too if you choose to believe what you read.
Did you know that only people who want to be saved, will be saved? No one repents if they do not want to repent. God does not force salvation upon anyone. Jesus says in Revelation 3:20 “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any many will hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and I will sup with him and him with me”. 
That was the basic formula for salvation and being born again in a nutshell. Jesus first Knocks! The man either ignores the knock or listens for who it is that is knocking. Let’ me stop there and tell you that Jesus is speaking figuratively or symbolically in this verse in Revelation. Jesus is not going to come to knock on your physical house or apartment personally. No, your house where your spirit lives is your physical body. God’s Spirit is the Spirit of Christ that comes to knock on your heart’s door. The door that Jesus knocks on is your ears when a man like me comes and preaches the salvation Gospel. Yes, the Spirit of God is the Key partner to any salvation. No man comes to God unless the Spirit of God draws him. But, God doesn’t come in person, physically anymore to save anyone. Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and He came for a short time to fulfill the plan of God for our Salvation and Redemption. But, He went back to heaven and has now turned over the responsibility of teaching and preaching to people like me and you. So when a man comes to you and tells you the good news of salvation, that is Jesus working through that man to help you see the truth. Then the individual who hears the words of God, now stands at a crossroad and at a time of decision; to either accept it or reject it. If they accept it, they believe what was said and can ask Jesus to come and be their Lord with a repentant heart. This invites Jesus to come in to sup. Jesus them comes in at that exact point in time. That is when you are saved, that is when you are born again. If that person refuse to hear the Gospel, then Jesus has no choice but to walk away from the door. Jesus is not going to kick the door down, just because He wants to save someone.
Any new born physical baby when first entering our world is sometimes smacked on the bottom and they take their first breaths of air and begin to cry. This is a joyous sound for the mother who has gone through 9 months of pregnancy and then labor. She now knows that all of the discomfort and pain was worth it. So also then the baby knows when he or she is born into the world because they can cry and the mother knows when she has given birth to the baby because she can hear their cry, something that they never did before. Is it any different in the spiritual realm? No I do not believe it is. Once a person believes in their heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior like Romans 10:9-10 says they are “born again”. The Spirit of Christ comes into their spirit and they are saved. The angels see the birth and rejoice. The mighty cloud of witnesses in heaven also see the birth and they now rejoice (Heb 12:1). This is just how it works by God’s design, if you do not believe it, that is your problem and not mine and it does not change the facts. I know that I am saved and I know how I got saved. Salvation was not a long process, it was not a complicated proces, it was just following the formula that God gave us in His Word that worked for me. So I’ll ask you one more time “Where do Spiritual Babies Come From”? I believe that you can see that we still have a lot to learn about how God does things in the unseen spiritual realm. If you are not a “born again” Christian and have had the pleasure of this new spiritual birth it is not difficult to make happen in your heart. If you want to read about how to be saved, you can go to “Salavation and How to Know if You are Going to Heaven” and follow the instructions. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series you may proceed to “Part 3“.
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How to know that I am saved?
Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Satan in the Bible
(ver 2.0) This is Part 2 in a series of reference documents about the multiple Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of named Spiritual Individuals in the Bible. This document will focus only on the subject verses of the enemy Satan found in the Bible. It is not designed to teach anything other than give you a place to search from to find references to Satan in the Bible. This is a living document of references and it will change and be updated as I am led to additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the individual. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents the individual in expressive words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol. I will now give you the list of my references to Satan in the Bible and if you have others that I have not found yet, please share them with me in a comment.
|
Name, Title, Symbol, Type for Satan |
Description |
Scripture Reference |
| 666 | The Number of the Beast | Rev 13:18 |
| Abaddon | Destroying Angel | Rev 9:11 |
| Accuser of the Brethren | Legal Opponent in Court of Law | Rev 12:10 |
| Adversary | The Opponent to the Church in a Lawsuit | 1 Peter 5:8 |
| Angel of Light | Impersonator, Actor, Stage Performer; Masquerader | 2 Cor 11:14 |
| Angel of the Bottomless Pit | Ruler of the Darkness | Rev 9:11 |
| Anointed cherub that coverth | The Winged Angelic Defender | Ezekiel 28:14 |
| Antichrist | Opponent of the Messiah | 1 John 4:3 |
| Appolyon | Greek Name of Hebrew Abaddon; Destroyer | Rev 9:11 |
| Baal | False God of the O.T. Type of Satan | Rom 11:4; |
| Balaam | False Teacher | Jude 1:11 |
| Bear | Kingdom of Satan Symbol | Rev 13:2 |
| Beast | Dangerous Animal; Venomous | Rev 14:9-10; Rev 16:10 |
| Beelzebub | Lord of the Flies; A god of Babylon | Mat 12:24, 27; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15, 18-19 |
| Belial | Worthless One | 2 Cor 6:15 |
| Bird, Hateful | Loveless | Rev 18:2 |
| Bird, Unclean | Foul, | Rev 18:2 |
| Blasphemer | Name of the One Who Vilifies God | Rev 13:1 |
| Cain | Murderer from the Beginning | Jude 1:11 |
| Chief of Demons | Prince of demonic gods | Luke 11:15 |
| Cherub | Winged Anointed of God | Ezekiel 28:14 |
| Cockatrice | The Viper | Isa 14:29, 59:5; |
| Deceiver | The One Who Deceives | Rev 12:9 |
| Devil | False Accuser; Slanderer | Mat 4:1-11, 9:33, 11:18, 12:22, 13:29, 15:22, 17:18, 25:41; Mk 5:15-18, 7:26-30; Luke 4:2-13, 4:33-35, 7:33, 8:12, 8:29, 9:42, 11:14; John 6:70, 7:20, 8:44-52, 10:20-21, 13:2; Acts 10:38 13:10; Eph 4:27, 6:11; 1 Ti 3:6-7; 2 Ti 2:26; Heb 2:14; James 4:7; 1Pet 5:8; 1 John 3:8-10; Jud 1:9; Rev 2:10, 12:9, 12:12, 20:2, 20:10; |
| Dragon | Fabulous Serpent | Rev 12:7 |
| Dragon, Great | Powerful Fabulous Serpent | Rev 12:9 |
| Edom | Type of Satan, twin brother of Jacob | Eze 32:29; Joel 3:19; Mal 1:4; |
| Enemy | Adversary | Mat 13:39 |
| Esau | Lord Hates | Mal 1:2-3; Rom 9:13 |
| Evil One | Malicious; Wicked One | John 17:15 |
| False Light | The Opposite TRUTH of True Light Jesus | 1 John 2:8 |
| Father | Male Parent | John 8:44; Acts 13:10 |
| Father of Lies | Fabricator of truth | John 8:44 |
| Fiery Flying Serpent | Satan | Isa 14:20, 30:6; |
| Fiery Serpent | Satan | Num 21:8; Deu 8:15 |
| Frog | Unclean Spirit | Rev 16:13 |
| Fox | Cunning Spirit | Luke 13:32 |
| Goat, He (devils) | Devils (Hebrew Word for He Goat) | Lev 17:7; 2 Chron 11:15 |
| God of this World | Ruler of the Night | 2 Cor 4:4 |
| Gog | Symbolic Name for the Anti-Christ | Rev 20:8; |
| Great Red Dragon | Serpent of Increased Power | Rev 12:3 |
| Herod | A Type of Satan the Murdering King | Luke 13:31 |
| Judas | Judah The Betrayer of Messiah | John 6:70-71; John 13:2 |
| King of Babylon | Ruler of Jerusalem | Isaiah 14:4 |
| King of the Bottomless Pit | Ruler of the Darkness | Rev 9:11 |
| King of Tyrus | Ruler of the Rock | Eze 28:12 |
| Laban | A type of a Deceitful Man | Gen 31:7 |
| Leopard | Kingdom of Satan Symbol | Rev 13:2 |
| Lesser Light | Moon who Rules the Night of Darkness | Gen 1:16 |
| Leviathan | Serpent Monster of Babylon | Isaiah 27:1 |
| Liar | Falsifier; Deceiver | John 8:44 |
| Lion | Kingdom of Satan Symbol | Rev 13:2 |
| Little Horn | Rising King | Daniel 8:9-11 |
| Lucifer | Bright and Morning Star | Isaiah 14:12-14 |
| Man of Sin | Man faced Trespasser | 2 Thes 2:3-4 |
| Moon | Ruler of the Night | Psalm 136:9; Rev 12:1 |
| Murderer | Man Killer | John 8:44 |
| Oppressor | He Who Makes Sick | Acts 10:38 |
| Perdition | The Destroyer | 2 Thes 2:3; |
| Pharaoh | He who rules Egypt a type of the World | Eze 31:2-18; |
| Power of Darkness | Superhuman Ruler of the Night | Col 1:13-14 |
| Prince of the Devils | Ruler of Evil Spirits | Mat 9:34, 12:24; Mark 3:22 |
| Prince of the Kingdom of Persia | Ruler of the nation of Babylon | Daniel 10:13 |
| Prince of the Power of the Air | Ruler of the Authority of Spoken Words | Eph 2:1-2 |
| Prince of this World | Ruler of the Evil Darkness | John 12:31-32; John 14:30; John 16:11; 1 Cor 2:6-8; |
| Roaring Lion | Powerful Sounding King of the Beasts | 1 Peter 5:8 |
| Ruler of the Darkness | Moon who Rules the Night | Ephesians 6:12 |
| Satan | The Accuser, the Opponent; Adversary | 1 Chron 21:1; Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-7; Ps 109:6; Zec 1:3:1-2; Mat 4:10, 12:26, 16:23; Mark 1:13, 3:23-26, 4:15, 8:33; Luke 4:8, 10:18, 11:18, 13:16, 22:3, 22:31; Jo 13:27; Act 5:3, 26:18; Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 5:5, 7:5; 2 Cor 2:11, 11:14; 1 Thes 2:18; 2 Thes 2:9; 1Tim 1:20, 5:15; Rev 2:9, 2:13, 2:24, 3:9; 12:9, 20:2, 20:7; |
| Seducing Spirit | Imposter; Deceiver | 1 Tim 4:1 |
| Seraphim | Fiery Serpent | Isa 6:2 |
| Serpent | Symbolic Name for Satan | Gen 3:1; Rev 12:15 |
| Serpent, Old | Symbolic Name for Satan; First Ruler of the earth | Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2 |
| Son of Perdition | Destruction’s Child | 2 Thes 2:3 |
| Son of the Morning | Satan a son of God’s First or Early Light | Isaiah 14:12-14 |
| Spirit, Foul | Perverted Spiritual Being | Rev 18:2 |
| Spirit, the | Satan a spiritual being | Ephesians 2:2 |
| Spirit, Unclean | Leprous Spiritual Being | Luke 9:42; Rev 16:13 |
| Star | Angel Cast Down to Earth | Rev 8:11; 9:1 |
| Star, Great | Angel Cast Down to Earth | Rev 8:10 |
| Star, Wandering | He Who Departs the Path | Jude 1:13 |
| Tempter | He Who Proves and Tests | Mat 4:3 |
| Thief | Robber; Burglar | Mat 24:43; Luke 12:39; John 10:10 |
| Viper | The serpent Satan | Isa 59:5; |
| Waster, the | He Who Destroys | Isaiah 54:16 |
| Wicked | Law Breaker; Evil Degenerate | 2 Thes 2:8; Eph 6:16 |
| Wormwood | Type of Bitterness | Rev 8:11 |
If you would like to references other documents in this series you may go to one of these:
Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Jesus in the Bible
(ver 2.3) This is Part 1 in a series of reference documents about the multiple Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of named Spiritual Individuals in the Bible. This document will focus only on the subject verses concerning Jesus found in the Bible. It is not designed to teach anything other than give you a place to search from to find references to Jesus in the Bible. This is a living document of references and it will change and be updated as I am led to additional scriptures. A Name is a direct reference to the individual. A Title is a given direct identifying appellation signifying status or function. A Description is something that represents the individual in expressive words. A Type is a real named person, place or thing that can be viewed to apply to a pattern of the spiritual individual not directly named. A Symbol is a natural object that describes the characteristics or features of a spiritual being that you cannot see or understand without first understanding the symbol. Here is what Jesus said to us about himself:
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
We know from what Jesus just said that the Bible is primarily about him, but you cannot find him directly named until the Gospels. However he was indirectly mentioned in almost every chapter of the Old Testament. I will give you a list of my references to Jesus in the Bible and if you have others that I have not found yet, please let me know about them.
|
Name, Title, Symbol, Type for Jesus |
Description |
Scripture Reference |
| Abel | Brother (a type of Christ) killed by Cain a type of Satan a murderer from the beginning | Genesis 4:2; |
| Abraham | Covenant Man of God a type of Jesus Christ | Gen 12-20; |
| Adam | A type of Jesus Christ; Gen 2:24 A man who leaves His Father to come to earth | Gen 2:; 1 Cor 15:45; |
| Adam, Last | Jesus referred to as the brother of Adam | 1Corinthians 15:45 |
| Advocate | Jesus Our Lawyer | 1John 2:1 |
| Alef and Tav, the | The first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet | Genesis 1:1 not in the English translation of the Bible only seen in the Hebrew |
| Almighty | The Supreme Powerful One | Revelation 1:8 |
| Alpha and Omega, the | The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, | Revelation 1:8 |
| Amen | God’s Final Word | Revelation 3:14 |
| Angel | God’s Messenger | Genesis 48:16; Exodus 23:20, 21 |
| Angel of His Presence | God’s Savior | Isaiah 63:9 |
| Anointed, His | God’s Anointed One | Psalms 2:2 |
| Appointed | He that was Chosen By God | 1 Sam 2:35; Heb 3:2; |
| Approved of God | He that Has God’s Favor | Acts 2:22; |
| Apostle, the | God’s Sent One | Hebrews 3:1 |
| Arm of the Lord | God’s Powerful One, The One at the Right Hand | Isaiah 51:9, 10 |
| Author and Finisher of our faith | God’s Inscriber of Faith | Hebrews 12:2 |
| Author of Life, the | Translated as Prince of Life in KJV | Acts 3:15 |
| Beginning and end of the creation of God | The Initiator and the Completion of all things made | Revelation 3:14; 22:13 |
| Beginning, The | Christ the Firstborn from the dead | Col 1:18; |
| Beloved | The One Loved By God | Ephesians 1:6 |
| Beloved Son | Son Loved by God | Matthew 3:17 |
| Bishop of Our Soul | Superintendent/Overseer of our Mind | 1 Peter 2:25 |
| Blessed and only Potentate | God’s happy Ruler of the Day | 1Timothy 6:15 |
| Boaz | A Type of Christ the Kinsman Redeemer | Book of Ruth |
| Branch, Righteous | God’s Seed that Sprouts Righteousness | Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8 |
| Branch, The | The sprouting life of God | Zechariah 3:8 |
| Bread of God | The spiritual food of God | John 6:33; |
| Bread of life | God’s Spiritual Food | John 6:35, 6:48 |
| Brethren | The natural man of Israel | Acts 3:22; |
| Bridegroom | Jesus the Husband to the Church | Psalm 19:5; Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19, Luke 5:34, John 3:29 |
| Bright Morning Star | Reference to Jesus Being the Sun, The Spiritual Light of the World | Revelation 22:16 |
| Brightness of the Father’s glory | God’s Sun Light Manifested | Hebrews 1:3 |
| Called of God | Jesus the Answer | Hebrews 5:10; |
| Captain of the Lord’s host | Leader of the Army of God | Joshua 5:14 |
| Captain of Salvation | God’s Deliverer | Hebrews 2:10 |
| Carpenter | God’s Builder of a Spiritual House | Mark 6:3 |
| Carpenter’s son | The Assumed Son of Joseph | Matthew 13:55 |
| Chief Shepherd | The Head of the Church | 1Peter 5:4 |
| Chief Cornerstone | The Stone the Builders Rejected, The First Stone in the New Jerusalem | Ephesian 2:20; 1Peter 2:6 |
| Chiefest among ten thousand | The Chosen One of Israel | Song of Songs 5:10 |
| Child | The Son of God and the Son of Man | Isaiah 9:6; Hosea 11:1; Luke 2:27, 43 |
| Chosen of God | The One Selected By God | 1Peter 2:4 |
| Christ | God’s Anointed One | Matthew 1:16; Luke 9:20; Acts 2:36; Heb 3:6 |
| Christ, The (Messiah) | God’s Anointed One | Matthew 16:20; Mark 14:61 |
| Christ a King | The Anointed King of Kings | Luke 23:2 |
| Christ Jesus | The Anointed Savior Jesus | Acts 19:4; Romans 3:24; 8:1; 1Corinthians 1:2, 30; Hebrews 3:1; 1Peter 5:10, 14 |
| Christ Jesus our Lord | Jesus the Anointed Supreme One | 1Timothy 1:12; Romans 8:39 |
| Christ of God | Acts 10:38 Says God Anointed Jesus of Nazareth | Luke 9:20 |
| Christ, the chosen of God | God’s Chosen Anointed One | Luke 23:35 |
| Christ the Lord | Anointed Supreme One | Luke 2:11 |
| Christ, the power of God | The Word Of God | 1Corinthians 1:24 |
| Christ the wisdom of God | God’s Application of His Understanding and Knowledge | 1Corinthians 1:24 |
| Christ, the Son of God | The Anointed Son of God | Acts 9:20 |
| Christ, Son of the Blessed | The Blessed Anointed Son | Mark 14:61 |
| Commander | God’s Chief Ruler, Prince | Isaiah 55:4 |
| Consolation of Israel | The One that Calls Israel to Good | Luke 2:25 |
| Cornerstone | The Stone the Builders Rejected, The First Stone in the New Jerusalem | Ephesians 2:20 |
| Counselor | The Giver of Advice | Isaiah 9:6 |
| Covenant of the people | The Divider of the People | Isaiah 42:6 |
| David Their King | Jesus the Seed of David | 2 Chron 6:6; Jeremiah 30:9 |
| Daysman | Jesus Our Attorney, Lawyer, Legal Representative | Job 9:33 |
| Dayspring From on High | Jesus the Sun or Righteousness, The Dawn of a New Day, The Rise of a New Light | Luke 1:78 |
| Day Star | Jesus the Sun Light of a New Day in our Hearts | 2Peter 1:19 |
| Deliverer | Savior and Redeemer | Psalm 18:2; Romans 11:26 |
| Desire of all nations | That Which Everyone Seeks | Haggai 2:7 |
| Door, the | The ONLY legal access to God | John 10:9 |
| Door of the sheep, the | The ONLY Access to God | John 10:7 |
| Elect | Chosen One | Isaiah 42:1 |
| Emmanuel (Immanuel) | God With Us | Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23 |
| Ensign | God’s Signal/Sign to Man | Isaiah 11:10 |
| Eternal Life | Our ONLY Way to Know God | 1John 5:20 |
| Everlasting Father | The Eternal Father | Isaiah 9:6 |
| Faithful | He who is trustworthy | Isa 49:7; Heb 3:2; |
| Faithful and True | The Dependable Truth | Revelation 19:11; |
| Faithful Priest | The True High Priest of God | 1 Samuel 2:35; |
| Faithful Witness, the | The Testimony of Truth | Revelation 1:5 |
| Faithful and true witness, the | The Testimony of Truth | Revelation 3:14 |
| Father to the Inhabitants of Jerusalem | Jesus the Everlasting Father | Isaiah 22:21; |
| Finisher of faith | He Who Brings Our Faith to a Completion | Hebrews 12:2 |
| Fire, A | A Light of Israel; | Isa 10:17; |
| First and last | The Beginning and End of all things | Isa 44:6, 48:12; Revelation 1:17; 2:8; 22:13 |
| First begotten | Jesus the First Born Again from the Dead | Hebrews 1:6 |
| First begotten of the dead | Jesus the First Born Again from the Dead | Revelation 1:5 |
| Firstborn | Jesus the First Born Again from the Dead | Psalms 89:27 |
| Firstborn from the dead | Christ the Heir of God | Col 1:18; |
| Flame, A | The Fire of God | Isa 10:17; |
| Foundation | The Spiritual Building Block of the New Jerusalem | Isaiah 28:16 |
| Foundation, Sure | Indestructible Rock | Isaiah 28:16 |
| Fountain | God’s Supply of Living Water | Zechariah 13:1 |
| Forerunner | He Who Goes First, The Trail Blazer | Hebrews 6:20 |
| Fourth, the | The 4th man in the Fire | Daniel 3:25 |
| Friend of sinners | My Friend Jesus | Matthew 11:19 |
| Gift of God | God’s Present to Man | John 4:10 |
| Glory of Israel | The Best of Israel | Luke 2:32 |
| God | Supreme Deity | John 1:1 |
| God blessed forever | The Eternally Happy Supreme Deity | Romans 9:5 |
| God manifest in the flesh | Emanuel God in a Physical Body | 1Timothy 3:16 |
| God of Israel, the Savior | The Supreme Deity that has Saved Israel | Isaiah 45:15 |
| God of the whole earth | The Omnipresent Supreme Deity | Isaiah 54:5 |
| God our Savior
|
The Supreme Deity that has Saved Us | 1Timothy 2:3 |
| God’s dear Son | Jesus the Son Loved By God | Colossians 1:13 |
| God with us | Emanuel God in Person | Matthew 1:23 |
| Good | Opposed to Evil | Matthew 20:15; |
| Good Master | The Sinless Lord | Matthew 19:16 |
| Good Shepherd | Leader of the sheep | John 10:11, 14; |
| Governor | Supreme Leader | Matthew 2:6 |
| Great Light | Jesus the Sun of Righteousness arisen in our hearts | Matthew 4:16; |
| Great Shepherd of the sheep
|
Head of the Church | Hebrews 13:20
|
| Greater Light, the | Jesus The Sun of Righteousness, Ruler of The Day | Genesis 1:16 |
| He that shall have dominion | The Ruler of Heaven and Earth | Numbers 24:19 |
| Head | Chief of the Body | Col 2:19 |
| Head of All Principality and Power | Supreme and Preeminent Spiritual Ruler | Col 2:10 |
| Head of the Body | The Husband to the Church | Col 1:18; |
| Head of the Corner | New Jerusalem Cornerstone | Matthew 21:42; 1 Peter 2:7 |
| Head of the ekklesia (body) | Leader of the Church | Ephesians 1:22, 23; 5:23; Colossians 1:18, 24 |
| Heir of all things | The Inheritor of the Kingdom of God | Hebrews 1:2 |
| High priest | God’s Eternal High Priest | Hebrews 3:1, 4:14, 7:26, 8:1, 9:11; |
| Head of every man | Chief Among Men | 1Corinthians 11:3 |
| Head of the corner | The Corner Stone in the New Jerusalem | Matthew 21:42; Acts 4:11 |
| Holy | Morally Blameless | Isa 57:15 |
| Holy child | Morally Blameless Son | Acts 4:30 |
| Holy One | The Chosen Blameless Man | Psalms 16:10; Isa 10:17; Acts 3:14, 13:35; 1 John 2:20; |
| Holy one of God | God Sent Blameless Man | Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34; |
| Holy one of Israel, the | Blameless Man from Israel | Isaiah 41:14; 47:4; 54:5 |
| Holy thing | Our Example of Blamelessness | Luke 1:35 |
| Hope (our) | Our Great Expectation | 1Timothy 1:1 |
| Horn of salvation | The King that Saved Us | Luke 1:69 |
| Husband, One | The New Covenant Maker | 2 Cor 11:2 |
| Husband, Thine | The One we Covenant With | Isaiah 54:5 |
| I AM | Our Everything We Need, the ALL Encompassing One | John 8:58 |
| Image of God | The Restored Likeness of the Supreme God | Hebrews 1:3 |
| Israel | The Head of God’s Spiritual Nation of People | Isaiah 41:8; Isaiah 49:3; Hosea 11:1 |
| Isaac | A type of Christ, God’s only begotten Son | Genesis 1:17; Genesis 21:10; Genesis 22:2 |
| Jacob | Type of Jesus, The Spiritual Head of the spiritual house of Israel; He will Rule as God | Genesis 32:28; Isaiah 41:8; Malachi 1:2-3; Romans 9:13 |
| Jacob my Servant | Faithful to God’s service | Isaiah 44:2; |
| Jehovah | The Most High God | Isaiah 40:3 |
| Jehovah’s fellow | Son of the Most High God | Zechariah 13:7 |
| Jeshurun | Upright One, Chosen of God | Isa 44:2; |
| Jesus | Our Spiritual Leader and Savior Joshua/Yeshua/ Jehoshua | Matthew 1:21; Used in over 600 verses in the N.T. for the name of God. |
| Jesus Christ | The Spiritually Anointed (Messiah) Joshua | Matthew 1:1; John 1:17; 17:3; Acts 2:38; 4:10; 9:34; 10:36; Romans 1:1, 16:18; 3, 6; 2:16; 5:15, 17; 6:3; 1Corinthians 1:1, 4; 2:2; 2Corinthians 1:19; 4:6; 13:5; Galatians 2:16; Philippians 1:8; 2:11; 1Timothy 1:15; Hebrews 13:8; 1John 1:7; 2:1 |
| Jesus Christ our Lord | Spiritually Supreme Anointed Leader | Romans 1:3; 6:11, 23; 1Corinthians 1:9; 7:25 |
| Jesus Christ our Savior | The Anointed Leader who Saved Us | Titus 3:6 |
| Jesus of Nazareth | Jesus the Natural Man/the Nazarene | Mark 1:24; Luke 24:19 |
| Jesus (of Nazareth), King of the Jews | Spiritual Leader of the Spiritual Jews | John 19:19; Matthew 27:37 |
| Jesus, the Son of God | The Son of the Most High Deity who is our Leader | Hebrews 4:14 |
| Jesus, the Son of Joseph | The Presumed son of Joseph | John 6:42 |
| Joint Heir | Co-Inheritor | Romans 8:17 |
| Joseph | A Fruitful Bough; A type of the coming deliverer | Gen 49:22 |
| Joshua | Leader into the Promise Land a type of Jesus | Joshua; Zechariah 3:8 |
| Judge | Supreme Lawyer of Justice | Acts 10:42 |
| Just man, Just person, Just One | Righteous Individual; Blameless Individual | Matthew 27:19, 24; Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14 |
| Justification, Our | Him who Justified Us | Romans 4:25; |
| King | Supreme Ruler | Isa 43:15; Matthew 21:5 |
| King Eternal | Everlasting Ruler | 1 Tim 1:17; |
| King of Israel | Supreme Ruler of Spiritual Nation of Israel | John 1:49 |
| King of the Jews | Supreme Ruler of the Spiritual Jews | Matthew 2:2 |
| King of Saints | Supreme Ruler of Spiritual Nation of Israel (the Church) | Revelation 15:3 |
| King of Kings | Supreme Ruler of the Church (New Jerusalem) | 1Timothy 6:15; Revelation 17:14 |
| King of Glory | Supreme Deity Ruler | Psalms 24:7-10 |
| King of Saints | The Ruler over the rulers | Rev 15:3 |
| King of Zion | Supreme Ruler of the Daughter of ZION (Church) | Matthew 21:5 |
| King over all the earth | Supreme Ruler of the planet | Zechariah 14:9 |
| Lamb | God’s Sacrifice for the Sin of humanity | Revelation 5:6, 8; 7:9, 6:16; 10, 17; 12:11; 13:8, 11; 14:1, 4; 15:3; 17:14; 21:9, 14, 22, 19:7, 9; 23, 27 |
| Lamb of God | God’s Sacrifice for the Sin of humanity | John 1:29 |
| Lamb that was slain | God’s Sacrifice for the Sin of humanity | Rev 5:12; |
| Lawgiver | God’s Scribe of Justice | Isaiah 33:22 |
| Leader | Military Commander | Isaiah 55:4 |
| Life, the | Our Source of Being | John 14:6 |
| Light | Jesus our internal Spiritual Sun | Mat 4:16; John 8:12 |
| Light, everlasting | Jesus our Spiritual Eternal Sun | Isaiah 60:19-20’ |
| Light of Israel | The Rising Sun of Spiritual Israel | Isa 10:17; |
| Light of the world | Jesus our Spiritual Sun who shines out of darkness | John 8:12, 9:5 |
| Light to the Gentiles | Jesus our Spiritual Sun who lights the way to God for every nation | Isaiah 42:6, 49:6; |
| Light, True | Jesus our Spiritual Sun and Source of Truth | John 1:9 |
| Lion of the tribe of Judah | Spiritual Ruler of the spiritual Jews (church) | Revelation 5:5 |
| Living Bread, the | The Word of Life | John 6:51 |
| Living God | The God of Eternal Life | 1 Tim 4:10; |
| Living Stone | The Living Corner Building Block of the New Jerusalem | 1Pet 2:4; |
| Lord | The One with Supreme Authority | Acts 2:36; Rom 1:3; |
| Lord and Savior – Jesus Christ | Supreme Ruler Who Saves | 2Peter 1:11; 3:18 |
| Lord Christ | The Anointed Supreme Ruler | Colossians 3:24 |
| Lord From Heaven | God Who Came From Heaven | 1 Cor 15:47 |
| Lord God Almighty | The All Powerful Supreme Deity Ruler | Revelation 15:3 |
| Lord Jesus | Supreme Ruler Jesus | Luke 24:3; Acts 1:21; 4:33; 7:59; 8:16; 9:29; 11:20; 19:5,10,13,17; 20:24,35; 21:13; Rom. 10:9; 14:14; 1Co. 5:5; 6:11; 11:23; 2Co. 1:14; 4:10,14; Gal. 6:17; Eph. 1:15; Php. 2:19; Col. 3:17; 1Th. 2:15; 4:1,2; 2Th. 1:7; Phm. 1:5; Heb. 13:20; Rev. 22:20; |
| Lord Jesus Christ | Anointed Supreme Ruler Jesus | Acts 11:17; 15:11,26; 16:31; 20:21; 28:31; Rom. 1:7; 5:1,11; 13:14; 15:6,30; 16:18,20,24; 1Co. 1:3,7,8,10; 5:4; 8:6; 15:57; 16:22,23; 2Co. 1:2,3; 8:9; 11:31; 13:14; Gal. 1:3; 6:14,18; Eph. 1:2,3,17; 3:14; 5:20; 6:23,24; Php. 1:2; 3:20; 4:23; Col. 1:2,3; 1Th. 1:1,3; 2:19; 3:11,13; 5:9,23,28; 2Th. 1:1,2,8,12; 2:1,14,16; 3:6,12,18; 1Ti. 1:1; 5:21; 6:3,14; 2Ti. 4:1,22; Tit. 1:4; Phm. 1:3,25; Jas. 1:1; 2:1; 1Pe. 1:3; 2Pe. 1:8,14,16; 2Jn. 1:3; Jude 1:4,17,21; Rev. 22:21; |
| Lord Jesus Christ our Savior | Anointed Supreme Ruler Jesus Who Saves | Titus 1:4 |
| Lord of all | Supreme Ruler of Everyone | Acts 10:36 |
| Lord of glory | Supreme Ruler of God’s Splendor | James 2:1 |
| Lord of Hosts (armies) | Supreme Ruler of the Army of God | Isaiah 44:6, 47:4; |
| Lord of Lords | Supreme Ruler of rulers | 1 Tim 6:15; Rev 17:14; 19:16 |
| Lord of the dead and living | Supreme Ruler of Everyone | Romans 14:9 |
| Lord of the Sabbath | Supreme Ruler of the Day of Rest | Mat 12:8; Mark 2:28 |
| Lord Our Righteousness, the | Supreme Ruler Who Makes Us Righteous | Jeremiah 23:6 |
| Lord over all | Supreme Ruler of Everything | Romans 10:12 |
| Lord, mighty in battle | Undefeatable Supreme Ruler | Psalms 24:8 |
| Lord’s Christ | Supreme Ruler of the Anointing | Luke 2:26 |
| Lord, strong and mighty | Undefeatable Supreme Ruler | Psalms 24:8 |
| Lord, your holy one | The Blameless Supreme Ruler | Isaiah 43:15 |
| Lord, your redeemer | The Supreme Ruler Who Has Purchased Us With His Blood | Isaiah 43:14 |
| Maker, Thy | Our Creator | Isaiah 17:7, 54:5 |
| Man, a | The Word of God became flesh (Adam) | Ezekiel 1:26 |
| Man Christ – Jesus | The Anointed Son of God/Man | 1Timothy 2:5 |
| Man of sorrows | Man of Pain | Isaiah 53:3 |
| Master | Head of the House | Matthew 23:8; Eph 6:9 |
| Master In Heaven | Head of the House of God | Col 4:1; |
| Mediator, the only | Our Reconciler, God’s Go Between Us and Him | 1Timothy 2:5 |
| Meek | The Humble God of all Power | Matthew 11:29; |
| Melchisedec | The King and High Priest of Jerusalem a type of Jesus Christ | Hebrews 7:15; |
| Messenger of the covenant | The Distributor of the News of Division | Malachi 3:1 |
| Messiah | God’s Anointed | John 1:41 |
| Messiah the Prince | The Anointed Ruler | Daniel 9:25 |
| Mighty God | The Undefeatable Deity | Isaiah 9:6 |
| Mighty one of Israel | The Undefeatable One of Israel | Isaiah 30:29 |
| Mighty one of Jacob | The Undefeatable One of Jacob | Isaiah 49:26 |
| Mighty to save | The Undefeatable Savior | Isaiah 63:1 |
| Minister of the sanctuary | Our High Priest | Hebrews 8:2 |
| Morning Star | Jesus Our Spiritual Sun who Rules the Day | Revelation 2:28 |
| Moses | A Type of Christ the Deliverer; the Lawgiver; Faithful servant; | Acts 7:35; Heb 3:5; |
| Most holy | Ultimate Blameless One | Daniel 9:24 |
| Most mighty | Omnipotent One | Psalms 45:3 |
| Nail, A | The Fastener of God | Isaiah 22:23 |
| Nazarene | Set Apart Man | Matthew 2:23 |
| Offspring of David | Descendant of David the King | Revelation 22:16 |
| Only Begotten | The Only Physically Born Son of God | John 1:14; John 1:18; John 3:16; John 3:18; 1John 4:9 |
| Only wise God, our Savior | The Unique Deity Possessor of Wisdom Who Saves | Jude 1:25 |
| Passover, our | The Lamb of God | 1Corinthians 5:7 |
| Plant of renown | God’s Seed of Righteousness | Ezekiel 34:29 |
| Potentate | Supreme Ruler | 1Timothy 6:15 |
| Power of God | The Word of God | 1Corinthians 1:24 |
| Physician | Healer | Matthew 9:12 |
| Precious Cornerstone | The Living Foundation for the New Jerusalem | Isaiah 28:16 |
| Priest Forever | Eternal Blood Shedder that Lives Eternally | Hebrews 7:17; Hebrews 7:21 |
| Prince | Supreme Ruler | Acts 5:31 |
| Prince of Life | Supreme Ruler and Giver of Life | Acts 3:15 |
| Prince of Peace | Supreme Ruler and Restorer of Tranquility | Isaiah 9:6 |
| Prince of the kings of the earth | Supreme Ruler of the rulers of the earth | Revelation 1:5 |
| Prince of the princes | Supreme Ruler of the rulers of the earth. | Daniel 8:25; |
| Prophet | The Anointed One Who Prophecies | Deuteronomy 18:15, 18; Matthew 21:11; Luke 24:19; Acts 3:22; |
| Propitiation (expiation, our Sin-offering) | The Lamb of God | 1John 2:2 |
| Rabbi, Rabboni | Teacher | John 1:49; 20:16 |
| Ransom | The Price Paid For Our Freedom | 1Timothy 2:6 |
| Redemption | He Who Purchased Us Back | 1Corinthians 1:30 |
| Redeemer | Purchaser of our field | Isaiah 59.20 |
| Redeemer of Israel | He who ransomed spiritual Israel with His blood | Isa 49:7; |
| Redeemer, Thy | He Who Purchased Us Back | Isaiah 41:14, 54:5 |
| Resurrection and the Life, the | Raised Back From Death to Life | John 11:25 |
| Redemption | He Who Purchased Us Back | 1Corinthians 1:30 |
| Righteous Branch | God’s Sprouting Seed of Righteousness | Jeremiah 23:5 |
| Righteous Judge | He Who Judges Fairly | 2Timothy 4:8 |
| Righteous Servant | Lawful Just Worker | Isaiah 53:11 |
| Righteousness | Our Justification | 1 Corinthians 1:30 |
| Rock, The | Cornerstone of Salvation | Deu 32:15 |
| Rock, Spiritual | Supernatural Stone | 1Corinthians 10:4 |
| Rock of Offence | The Stone that Offends | Isaiah 8:14; 1Peter 2:8 |
| Root of David | The Source of Life for David | Revelation 5:5; 22:16 |
| Root of Jesse | The Source of Life for Jesse | Isaiah 11:10; Romans 15:12 |
| Rose of Sharon | God’s Fragrant Flower | Song of Songs 2:1 |
| Ruler in Israel | King of the Jews | Micah 5:2 |
| Salvation | The One that Saves | Luke 2:30 |
| Salvation, My | He who Saved Us | Isa 49:6; |
| Sanctification | He Who is Set Apart | 1Corinthians 1:30 |
| Sanctuary | Our Holy of Holies | Isaiah 8:14 |
| Savior | The One that Saved Us! | Luke 1:47, 2:11; John 4:14; Acts 5:31, 13:23; Php 3:20; 1 Ti 1:1, 2:3, 4:10; 2 Tim 1:10; Titus 1:3-4, 2:10, 2:13, 3:4, 3:6; 2 Pet 1:1, 3:2; Jud 1:25; |
| Savior Jesus Christ | The One that Saves Jesus the Anointed | 2Timothy 1:10; Titus 2:13; 2Pet 1:1, 2:20, 3:18; |
| Savior of the body (ekklesia) | The One that Saved the Church | Ephesians 5:23 |
| Savior of the world | The Only Hope For Those in Darkness | Jn 4:4; 1Jn 4:14 |
| Sceptre | The Living Rod of God | Numbers 24:17 |
| Second Man, the | The Brother of Adam | 1Corinthians 15:47 |
| Seed, the | The Seed of God | Galatians 3:19 |
| Seed of Abraham | He Who Was In Abraham | Hebrews 2:16 |
| Seed of David | He Who Was In David | 2Timothy 2:8 |
| Servant | He who serves others | Isaiah 42:1, 49:6; |
| Servant of rulers | He who washes the feet of others | Isaiah 49:7 |
| Shepherd | The Overseer of the Flock | Gen 49:24; Psalm 23:1; Mark 14:27 |
| Shepherd and Overseer of souls | He Who Watches Over the Mind and Thoughts of Man | 1Peter 2:25 |
| Shepherd, Chief | The Overseer of the overseers | 1Peter 5:4 |
| Shepherd, Good | The Blameless Overseer | John 10:11 |
| Shepherd, Great | The Omnipotent Overseer | Hebrews 13:20 |
| Shepherd of Israel | The Overseer of God’s Israel the church | Psalms 80:1 |
| Shepherd, One | The only one that feeds us | John 10:16 |
| Shiloh | He Who Prospers | Genesis 49:10 |
| Solomon | Son of David the Builder of God’s Temple; a type of Christ | 1 Chron 28:9; 1 Chron 29:19; |
| Son | The Son of God | Mat 28:19; John 3:17; John 3:35-36; John 5:19-26; John 6:40; John 14:13; John 17:1; Rom 1:3; Rom 1:9; Rom 5:10; Rom 8:3; 1 Cor 15:28; Gal 1:16; Gal 4:4; 1 Th 1:10; Heb 1:2; Heb 3:6; Heb 5:5; Heb 7:28; 1Jn 1:7; 1 Jn 2:23-24; 1 Jn 4:10; 1 Jn 4:14; 1 Jn 5:9; 1 Jn 5:11-13; 2 Jn 1:3; |
| Son, Beloved | Son Loved By God | Mat 3:17; 2 Pe 1:17; |
| Son, dear | Loved Son of God | Col 1:13; |
| Son, My | The Son of God | Hosea 11:1 |
| Son, Only Begotten | The Only Naturally born Son of God | John 3:16; |
| Son Jesus Christ | The evidence that Jesus the Son was Messiah | 1 Cor 1:9; 1 Jn 1:3; |
| Son of God | He Who Was Born From God | Daniel 3:25; Mat 4:3; Mat 4:6; Mat 8:29; Mat 14:33; Mat 26:63; Mat 27:40; Mat 27:43; Mat 27:54; Mar 1:1; Mar 3:11; Mar 15:39; Luk 1:35; Luk 4:3; Luk 4:9; Luk 4:41; Luk 8:28; Luk 22:70; Joh 1:34; Joh 1:49; Joh 3:18; Joh 5:25; Joh 9:35; Joh 10:36; Joh 11:4; Joh 11:27; Joh 19:7; Joh 20:31; Act 8:37; Act 9:20; Rom 1:4; 2Co 1:19; Gal 2:20; Eph 4:13; Heb 4:14; Heb 6:6; Heb 7:3; Heb 10:29; 1Jn 3:8; 1Jn 4:15; 1Jn 5:5; 1Jn 5:10; 1Jn 5:12; 1Jn 5:13; 1Jn 5:20; Rev 2:18; |
| Son of Man | He Who was born of a natural woman a Son of Adam | Mat 8:20; Mat 9:6; Mat 10:23; Mat 11:19; Mat 12:8; Mat 12:32; Mat 12:40; Mat 13:37; Mat 13:41; Mat 16:13; Mat 16:27; Mat 16:28; Mat 17:9; Mat 17:12; Mat 17:22; Mat 18:11; Mat 19:28; Mat 20:18; Mat 20:28; Mat 24:27; Mat 24:30; Mat 24:37; Mat 24:39; Mat 24:44; Mat 25:13; Mat 25:31; Mat 26:2; Mat 26:24; Mat 26:45; Mat 26:64; Mar 2:10; Mar 2:28; Mar 8:31; Mar 8:38; Mar 9:9; Mar 9:12; Mar 9:31; Mar 10:33; Mar 10:45; Mar 13:26; Mar 13:34; Mar 14:21; Mar 14:41; Mar 14:62; Luk 5:24; Luk 6:5; Luk 6:22; Luk 7:34; Luk 9:22; Luk 9:26; Luk 9:44; Luk 9:56; Luk 9:58; Luk 11:30; Luk 12:8; Luk 12:10; Luk 12:40; Luk 17:22; Luk 17:24; Luk 17:26; Luk 17:30; Luk 18:8; Luk 18:31; Luk 19:10; Luk 21:27; Luk 21:36; Luk 22:22; Luk 22:48; Luk 22:69; Luk 24:7; Joh 1:51; Joh 3:13; Joh 3:14; Joh 5:27; Joh 6:27; Joh 6:53; Joh 6:62; Joh 8:28; Joh 12:23; Joh 12:34; Joh 13:31; Act 7:56; Rev 1:13; Rev 14:14; |
| Son of the Father | The Son of the First part of the Trinity | 2John 1:3 |
| Son of the Blessed One (God) | Son of the Happy One | Mark 14:61 |
| Son of the Highest One (God) | Son of the Omnipotent One | Luke 1:32 |
| Son of David | He Who is Born from David | Matthew 9:27 |
| Star out of Jacob | The Messenger from Jacob, the Sun of Righteousness | Numbers 24:17 |
| Stone, Tried | The Foundation of the New Jerusalem | Isaiah 28:167; |
| Stone, the | God’s Cornerstone of the New Jerusalem | Psalm 118:22; Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 2017; Acts 4:11 |
| Stone of Israel, The | The Spiritual Cornerstone of Israel | Gen 49:24; |
| Sun, the | The Sun that Rules the Day | Psalm 19:4, 84:11,136:8; Matthew 17:2; Rev 1:16; |
| Sun of Righteousness | The Sun that Shines Righteousness | Malachi 4:2 |
| Surety (Guarantee) | He Who is Trustworthy | Hebrews 7:22 |
| Stone of Stumbling | The Building Block Rejected by the Builders | Isaiah 8:14; 1Peter 2:8 |
| Sure Foundation | He Who is Trustworthy and Strong | Isaiah 28:16 |
| Teacher | The Knowledge Giver | John 3:2 |
| True God | The Opposite of the false god | 1John 5:20 |
| True Vine | The Real Source of Life | John 15:1 |
| Truth, the | He who is Faithful and True | John 14:6 |
| Unspeakable Gift | The Indescribable Present | 2Corinthians 9:15 |
| Very Christ | Unlimited Anointing | Acts 9:22 |
| Vine, the | The Source of Life to the branches | John 15:1-5; |
| Way, the | The Only Path to God | John 14:6 |
| Which is, which was, which is to come | The Eternal One God | Revelation 1:4 |
| Wisdom | The Application of Knowledge and Understanding | Proverbs 8:12 |
| Wisdom of God, the | The manifestation of God’s knowledge and understanding | 1Corinthians 1:24 |
| Witness | He Whose Testimony is True | Isaiah 55:4; Revelation 1:5; |
| Witness, Faithful | He Whose Testimony you can count on | Revelation 3:14; |
| Witness, True | He Whose Testimony is True | Revelation 3:14; |
| Wonderful | The One Beyond Compare | Isaiah 9:6 |
| Word, The | God’s Power | John 1:1; John 1:14; 1 John 5:7 |
| Word of God | The Power of the Omnipotent Deity | Revelation 19:13 |
| Word of Life | God’s Power to make Alive | 1John 1:1 |
| Worthy | Jesus the Highest | Heb 3:3; Jas 2:7; Rev 4:11, 5:9, 5;12 |
If you would like to read other reference documents about Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols here are some others that are available:
Understanding the Concepts of Deception Used by Satan!
(ver 1.9) This is Part 2 of a series of Bible lessons on the subject of deception. If you have not read “Part 1” I would suggest that you go there to begin your study. Let’s read one of the series foundational Bible verses to get us started:
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Today will be a different type of Bible lesson for me. As you can see from our Key Bible verse above, Satan is called the deceiver that is trying to deceive the whole world. That means, Christians and non-Christians alike. Satan is an equal opportunity deceiver and he shows no favoritism. He is interested in causing us to be deceived from believing and knowing the Truth of God by any means that he can. So I’m going to introduce you to some new things to think about that God has taught me personally. You will hopefully see that these few things that I present you to think about could be a very effective tool of our enemy Satan. I do hope that you understand that God’s enemies are Christian enemies also. If Satan is an enemy of God, then he is our enemy here and now on the earth. Satan’s greatest weapon on the earth has always been the subtly of deception. But, Jesus told us that if we continued in His word we would be His disciples and that we would know the truth and that the truth would set us free (John 8:31-32). That sounds like our freedom is dependent upon us continuing in the word, recognizing the truth, knowing the truth and then using this knowledge of God’s truth to set us free. If Satan can keep you from knowing the truth you will be forever bound by his deception. That is why he is trying diligently to do everything in his power to distract you and to keep you from knowing more about the Bible. In fact deception is one of his only weapons that he has to defeat you. If he can get you to think and believe wrong, he has accomplished his plan of deception and you are now a party working in conjunction with him to deceive others in the world. There are false prophets, false teachers and false apostles in the world everywhere we look. The numbers of these false distributors of lies are so many today that it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christians to recognize all of the ways that Satan uses to deceive people. I will discuss just a couple of the ways that God has taught me over the years that Satan uses and I pray that you can see them also.
I am going to start with one method of deception which I feel is critical for all Christians to understand. This method of deception is to take a small but critical piece of the truth in the Bible and then to possess it or claim it is something that it is not. False teachers take bits of information out of context and then teach it in a false religion with new imbedded lies attached to it. For example, we can find the “Golden Rule” of the Bible found in almost every religion of the world in some alternative form. Because all of these other religions have attached themselves to this verse in the Bible, they have in essence diluted the true meaning as having come from God and they change it to fit what they prefer it to say. Most Christians just automatically discredit the teachings of Satanism and Cultic organizations. But, where did these false religious organizations get their information and why is it so important for them to claim it all as their own original ideas? Think about this a long time, where did all knowledge come from? Was it not our Almighty God who holds all knowledge? I think I should stop here and tell you that what I am saying I am saying to only mature Christians who have been in Christ for many years. I do not want you to think that it is OK to explore Satanism, or to go and study other religions looking for the truth. That would be very foolish to go to a source of predominately lies and try to determine which words are true and which ones are false. That is exactly what Satan wants you to do. What I am saying is study the Bible and ONLY the Bible and find the truth and then do not reject it because Satan has tried to pervert it. Do the sayings of Jesus from John 8:31-32. Continue in the Word was the first step of the command. That means you do not search history books, you do not search text books, you do not search other religions and you only stay with the BIBLE for your total and complete source of the truth!
I am not convinced that Satan has ever had a completely original idea in anything that he does or says on the earth. It would appear to me that Satan takes what God does and perverts into something useful for his purpose of deception. You must realize that Satan is a highly intelligent being that can run spiritual circles around what you know right now. Satan has been in the presence of God and seen what He does first hand, have you ever stood before the throne of God? I doubt seriously if you have. Satan has been deceiving man for the last 6000 years, how old are you? Does your experiences match Satan’s experiences? I say Satan has had a lot more practice at deceiving people than you have had at resisting him. What Satan likes to do is take little key principles from the Word of God and to pervert them so that many Christians will automatically reject them because they are taught as a part of a cult lesson. Do you understand how powerful this is? By taking a truth and by discrediting it, he can now cause many people to more easily reject that truth and be deceived into believing a lie. This is a common political tactic used in our political system. A candidate for office simply discredits his opponent with some perverted mixture of truth with lies. By discrediting them they make themselves to be a more positive answer for the people. I usually do not like to name names but I will give you an example of this type of behavior of Satan. I was told by a reader that a small part of what I teach is a concept that is embraced by the Mormons and used to promote evolution. Since the Mormon religion is a false cultic teaching, does that make everything that they teach a lie? If I do not teach evolution using this same concept does that make what I say a lie? No, what I say is not a lie, but it has been discredited by a cult taking it and perverting into their lies. Does what they teach discredit everything that I say using the Bible? Again, I am not telling you to go read the Book of Mormon and try to figure out what is true and what is false. That is clearly a ploy of the enemy. The book of Mormon is promoted as ANOTHER Testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ given to a false prophet and written down so that you will not read the REAL Testimony of Jesus Christ. Jesus actually warned us not to read things that people ADD to the bible. Jesus clearly told us not to take away any words or to add any words to those that have been written in the Bible (Rev 22:19). The enemy has produced this book of Mormon simply as a tool to get you to not read the TRUE Word of God and His Holy Book of Truth. As long as Satan can distract you with the false you are never going to recognize the Truth. But, if the Mormons try to teach something that is a part of the truth just to discredit the truth; that does not mean the truth is not present in the Bible.
So let me give you another example of something that I may teach that is perverted by a satanic symbol. A common satanic symbol is a five pointed star with a symbol of a male goat with horns on it. Why did Satan choose this symbol to pervert it? What is the significance of this symbol and the meaning of this symbol? Why did Satan pick a goat to pervert it? Now anything in the Bible that God uses for the symbol of the goat is tainted with this perverted image. Because the goat and the 5 pointed star symbols are used for a direct reference to Satan, anything that the Bible now attempts to use them for are more easily rejected by Christians. If someone suddenly came to you with a new revelation of what God said a “star” represents; you will more than likely retract from it. Now, if anyone comes to you with a revelation of what a goat is a symbol of in the Bible, you will automatically throw it aside. This is typical human nature to throw away even the good because someone used it for evil. It is an automatic death sentence for any symbolic object that Satan has used to describe himself. This death occurs by the simple association of any truth by associating with the lies or symbols for Satan. All Satan has to do is to get someone in the world to take a Bible symbol and to pervert it into a symbol for Satan and every Christian will automatically run very fast away from it.
The Bible informs us that Satan presents himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14). Why would Satan then try to present himself with strong demonic images of himself being a very evil being with a pitch fork, horns and a pointed tail? It is because when he shows up looking like a glorious spectacular supernatural being or even as a normal looking person, he will be able to trick you into believing his lies. After all you are looking for an evil ugly being and not a handsome good looking fellow. It is the classic bait and switch approach to advertising; you present one image and then you switch out another new image that is completely different and try to get people to be a sucker for something they didn’t expect to get. This is a very prominent ploy used in deception. Make people think this is true and then present them with a set of lies that are believable. Satan used people like David Koresh and Jim Jones to deceive people. They looked normal, they sounded normal and presented some very subtle words of deception. As a result many people died because these men decided it was time to die. Understanding how your enemy Satan operates may save your life someday.
I’ll end this blog with one more example of deception. If you did not know it, the Ram is a Bible symbol for God the Father. However Satan uses this symbol for himself. Satan is attempting to exalt his throne to the equivalency of that of God’s throne. Satan is trying to deceive people into believing that he is god. When the anti-Christ comes in Revelation he will be setting himself up to be this most high god. So where is God a Ram in the Bible? We can find this several places in the Bible but we will start with Genesis 22:
Gen 22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
When Isaac asked his father Abraham “Where is the animal for the sacrifice?” Abraham replied “God will provide Himself as the lamb”. Jesus is repeatedly called the Lamb of God in the N.T. This is a symbolic name for Jesus Christ our sacrifice Lamb. Who is the father of a Lamb? A Ram is the father of a Lamb! As you can see in this verse in Genesis 22, instead of Abraham sacrificing Isaac God provided a Ram. This Ram was a symbol of Himself being the sacrifice. Abraham sacrifices the Ram a symbol of God coming to the earth in the flesh to pay the price for the sins of all mankind with His blood. So God’s symbol is that of a Ram and Satan now produces this symbol to represent himself. What is Satan trying to do? He is trying to discredit the truth of the Bible. He is taking a real symbol found in the Bible and trying to present you a false symbol. This is a classic ploy of deception. Take the real and pervert it.
So this blog was different, I know! It was an attempt to challenge you to think. Use your brain for something more than a place holder of useless information. Take the real and reject the fakes, the false, and the lies of the enemy. God Bless you to know the difference!
If you would like to continue reading about deception you can continue to “Part 3“.
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If you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to: How do I get saved?
Understanding Seeds in the Bible! Seed Laws Applied to New Testament Truths! Part 6
(ver 1.3) This is Part 6 in the study series about seeds in the Bible. In my last few lessons on this subject, I have been going through some of the parables of Jesus concerning the subject of Seeds. In these lessons we learned some very valuable spiritual information that apply to every Christian believer and unsaved non-believer. Jesus used these natural Seed concepts and laws to describe vast complex spiritual realities that we have never seen or could even attempt to understand. The Bible contains more than 200 direct references to seeds in the KJV Bible and certainly many, many more indirect references on the subject can be found. If you have not been reading this series of lessons from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start with Part 1 first. Today I want to teach you some New testament truths by reviewing and applying some of the basic seed law concepts that we learned from Genesis. We will read and study several New Testament verses that we have not discussed up to this point and learn how seeds apply to them.
THE SEED WITHIN ITSELF LAW
One of the first seed concepts that I gave you was the “Seed within Itself” law and concept revealed in Genesis 1:11. If you do not understand correct Bible interpretation, one rule or law of correct Bible interpretation is called the “Law of First Mention”. By going into the Bible and finding the first occurrence of a subject you are introduced to some basic concepts that are usually critical to understanding the entire subject. So Genesis 1:11 says that the earth brought forth trees with fruit “whose seed was in itself”. We understand this to be a natural law which applies, to fruit as well as to the natural man and woman. This law represents a self-sustaining reproductive system that was designed and created by God. God created one thing and this thing contained the built in capability to reproduce indefinitely, sustaining the existence of the species.
1Jn 3:9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
In reviewing the parable of the Sower we learned that the Seed of God was the Word of God. It was the Seeds of God’s Words that produces the spiritual fruit in our spirits. So this verse in 1 John 3:9 tells us that we are born of God. We should be able to clearly understand that this is a spiritual birth and not a physical birth and we can confirm that by reading the words of Jesus in John 3. We have previously seen that the human male sperm was called “seed” in the Bible and we can now begin to see a spiritual application taught from the pattern found within the naturally created reproductive process. This verse says that when we are born spiritually, and it came as a result of us accepting the truth of God’s Word. Now God’s Seed is in us and this is a spiritual repetition of the “seed within itself” law. The more of the Word of God you learn, the more of the Seed of God you have in you and the more fruit of God is potentially produced. It is a very basic concept, but yet very profound.
1Pe 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
So here is another New Testament verse that describes the spiritual Seed of God to be the Word of God. This Spiritual Seed is compared and contrasted with the natural seed of the created man. The sperm of a man is called the corruptible seed. The Greek word translated as corruptible means “decaying” or “perishing”. This is interestingly enough related to the laws of thermodynamics that states everything is in a state of decay around us. Humans are in a state of aging from the moment they are conceived. However, we the body of Christ are Christians that are spiritually “born again”. This birth is not a natural birth, but is a spiritual birth that came as a result of us hearing the Spiritual Words of God. This would be symbolically analogous to our spirits being like the womb of a woman with the fertile egg present. By us lending our ears to God’s Word and hearing it and then understanding it, God’s Word becomes one with our spirit and then God’s Spirit becomes one with our spirit (1 Co 1:16). 1 Peter 1:23 teaches us that God’s word/seed will now “Abide” within us. Abide means to indwell and live in our spirits. This is clearly the seed within itself law from Genesis 1:11. If you have heard the Word of God and have accepted it and know it you have His spiritual seed on the inside of your spirit. Always remember that the Seed of God is in you!
EVERY SEED PRODUCES AFTER ITS OWN KIND LAW
Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
God is talking to us about another law concerning seeds in this verse in Galatians. This law is also revealed to us in the first chapter of Genesis 1 in verse 11. However, here God is telling us about the seeds that are sown by a man. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? God says that every man will reap whatever kind of seeds that he sows. This is a basic spiritual application of the first law of seeds that every seed produces after its own kind. When I talked about this law originally, I told you that an apple seed will produce only an apple tree and an orange seed will produce only an orange tree. So what you get in life is determined by what you plant. This verse also says that God is not mocked by those who say this is not true and by those that say that this does not apply to them. In other words God is saying this is the way everything in the world works whether you believe it or not. That was a very strong statement from God. You should be beginning to understand a little better about the power of the seeds that you sow, if you have read this entire series of lessons. If you decide not to believe what you just read, God says you are not mocking the messenger Agapegeek, you are mocking God and I would be very concerned about doing something foolish like that.
Gal 6:8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
The next verse in Galatians is just more conformation to exactly what God has said before. This verse reveals to us that there are two types of seeds that every man can sow in this world. The first type of seed is a natural or carnal seed type and this is another example of a corruptible seed type that will reap only natural death. Then there is a spiritual seed type that can be sown and this seed reaps life everlasting. So let me stop right there and ask you this, what is life everlasting? This certinaly does not mean that you will never die physically if you sow to the spirit. It also does not mean that you will ever cease to exist, if you do not do this. Man was created as a spirit being that will never cease to exist, after we die physically; our spirit will either go to heaven or to hell based upon our current relationship with Jesus Christ. The problem with most Bible interpretations is that people do not attempt to get God’s definition on any of the words that they are reading. They read every word and assume they know what they mean and then miss what God is trying to teach them. Here is a verse in the Bible that gives us God’s clear definition of what “eternal life” is in His eyes:
Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
To me this definition changes the meaning to what I thought it meant to live eternally dramatically and it causes me to shift my thinking differently than I had ever thought before. Eternal life is not living forever; eternal life is your ability to know the True Living God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent forever. That is just a radically different perspective of life eternal. Those who die without this spiritual eternal life will never know God or Jesus Christ and will probably not have a clue why they went to hell. I guess they may have some idea since God speaks of a coming time of judgment and there will certainly be some discussion to the charges against them before judgment is passed if God’s court is like our courts. I guess that last two statements was just my opinions so please do not take them as scripture. I also briefly got off of the subject of seeds to define a term that I think is important for you to know.
SEED SINGULAR OR SEED PLURAL?
Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
I alluded to this seed concept in an earlier lesson on this subject. I talked about the fact that the word “seed” can be taken as either plural or singular and that it is only determined which one it is referring to by the contextual usage of the word and even that can be very difficult figure out. This is just one of the intentionally designed methods of God used to conceal the truth in the Bible. In this verse in Galatians God is referring to the promise made to Abraham. Since Jesus was in Abraham when God made this promise Jesus was the “Seed” within himself that was to receive the promise. Abraham naturally fathered several children. Ishmael and Isaac are the two obvious sons that everyone remembers from Sunday school. However, Ismael was cast out of the house by Abraham’s wife Sarah and is not the promised child. Isaac was the promised child, the future grand-father to the nation of Israel. But, yet Galatians say that Isaac was not the seed that was to receive this promise. However, again Jesus was also in his father Isaac as the seed. Then the two sons of Isaac were born, Jacob and Esau. Esau, the firstborn was not the selected path either, but the younger son Jacob was. Jesus was in His father Jacob as a seed. I could go on and on through every generation from Israel to Mary and see that Jesus was in each parent. But, none of these were the selected “seed”.
Galatians 3:16 says that the promised “seed” that was in Abraham was only Jesus Christ. This was clearly a singular occurrence and not a multiple pattern of seeds being referred to. Hopefully you can better understand how God can look at Abraham and make a promise about his seed, when God was speaking about Jesus Christ who was in Abraham. The Son of God was the promised seed able to fulfill the requirements of God’s conditions, to fulfill the law, to live a sinless life, to die and shed his blood for you and I and to be raised from the dead so that we could forever go and live with Him. To me that is just an awesome display of the wisdom of God. I think I will end this blog today right here. I have just selected a few New Testament applications of the Seed concepts and laws and tried to show you how God used them to fulfill His plan of redemption. Hopefully you are deriving some benefit from these lessons. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading this series you may go to “Part 7“.
Understanding Seeds in the Bible! The Kingdom of God is Like a Man that Sowed Good Seed! Part 5
(Ver 1.2) This is now part 5 of a series of lessons on seeds in the Bible. Hopefully if you have been reading this series you have started to understand the importance of knowing and fully understanding this subject. Jesus seemed to indicate that this subject was the key to understanding every other subject in the Bible. God has designed and implemented a wide variety of natural objects and laws as views into the spiritual realm that we do not know very much about. The natural laws concerning “seeds” are just one prime example of this revelation. God believes that you can plant just a single seed and expect a vast harvest. God planted the man Jesus Christ as a seed and He has been waiting for all of the fruit of this sown seed for the last 2000 years. Since I can not fully explain everything or repeat everything that is said in every blog, I would strongly suggest that you go back and and start reading with “Part 1” if you have not read from the start.
In the last lesson we discussed that Jesus was a seed. As you may also recall I also implied in a previous lesson that Adam was a seed. However, Adam was a natural seed and Jesus the Last Adam was a spiritual seed. In Genesis 1, God spoke to Adam and told him to be “fruitful” and to “multiply”. These are seed concepts that we have already discussed in some level of detail. Fruit comes from seeds and the fruit has the seeds to produce more fruit. This is the natural law of multiplication. Most seeds that you plant in the ground always produce multiple or multiplied new seeds. If you plant a seed of corn in the ground it will grow a new plant that can have anywhere from one to eight new ears of corn on it. Each ear of corn can contain anywhere from 200 to 400 new seeds. So doing simple math, we can say one kernel of corn seed is potentially multiplied into as many as (8 x 400=3200) new seeds. If you take these 3200 new seeds and plant them; potentially you get 3200 x 3200 new seeds that is more than multiplied growth, it is now becoming exponential growth. This represents the power of a single seed in the Bible. It only takes one seed to have potential explosive growth. God started with just one man named Jesus and this has resulted in a very large number of believers today. This is exactly why Jesus could say the Kingdom of God is like a man that plants a seed.
Today I want to explore some new concepts of seeds in the Bible using another parable that Jesus taught us. In this parable the Kingdom of Heaven is again being spoken of and a man is again planting seeds into the ground. It seems that Jesus used this seed analogy repeatedly to try to teach us new spiritual things. So let’s see what Jesus is saying now:
Mat 13:24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
So while Jesus is declaring another parable about a very similar subject, He is at the same time giving us additional information about the spiritual laws of seeds. In the last parable, Jesus qualified the noun seed with the adjective “mustard” meaning he limited the scope to a specific type of seed. In Matthew 13:24 Jesus does the exact same thing, but this time says this is “good” seed. With the addition of a simple adjective of “good” Jesus teaches us that there are also “bad” or “evil” seeds in the world. In my front yard I sometimes call these weeds, because these can be thorns and thistles and they are never anything that I planted. What we immediately conclude is that not every seed is “good”. Remember what God said was the “good” seed. Jesus taught us in the parable of the Sower that the seed was the “Word of God”. Obviously the Word of God is the Good Seed that potentially produced the Good Fruit. So what is “bad” or “evil” seed? I think we are about to find out:
Mat 13:25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
It is important to note that God’s good seed is planted to produce “wheat”. Wheat is a very specific crop with a very specific purpose. It is critical for you to see if God would have wanted corn, He would have planted corn, if God would have wanted potatoes, God would have planted potatoes. What we learn is that God’s seed is specifically designed to produce a very specific crop for a very specific purpose. Wheat is normally ground up and we create flour with it and this is the key component to making bread. It is interesting Jesus talked about He was the bread of life. We can clearly see an association between Jesus the grain of wheat seed being sown to produce the future bread. After Jesus arose, the explosion of the Word of God grew very significantly. This growth was in both the new written words of the New Testament and the increased understanding of the Old Testament.
Many will try to interpret this parable and say things that it does not say. According to the Bible, God does not sleep or slumber, yet Jesus as a physical man certainly slept. However, now we are not talking about just God anymore. We must recall what the soil represented in the Parable of the Sower. The soil represented people in the world. Now that changes everything. People do sleep both physically and spiritually. Natural sleep is a pattern for spiritual sleep. We all normally sleep at night and work during the day. These are symbols and typology for the hearts of man also. Those in the night are those in darkness and they are spiritually asleep. God has given to us the “Good Seed”, the True Word, but yet God is not here personally to give it out and teach it to us in the flesh anymore. So this is a parable about the good seed creating the new spiritual Kingdom of God. Where exactly is the Kingdom of God located? Many will try to say it is in heaven, but this is not what Jesus taught. If you read in Luke 17:21, Jesus told us that the Kingdom of God is now “within us”. We therefore know that this Kingdom of God is within our spirits, right here and right now. So what do you call those that have the Kingdom of God in them right now? You call them Christians, those that are in the light! The opposite to those in the light are those who are in the darkness. These are those who spiritually sleep and slumber. These are the men who slept that Jesus is talking about in this parable. God didn’t begin to give us the Bible (good seed) for over 2000 years of human history. The Bible has grown over the next 2000 years from a few books into our current 66 books of the KJV Old and New Testaments. This is another example of the multiplication of seed. While men were in the darkness and spiritually asleep, Satan came and sowed tares. We clearly see that the tares came from a false, bad, evil set of words being spoken. You can call them lies, falsehoods, deceptive words, deceits, fabrications and you can even call them “leaven” even though we have not really discussed what symbolic “leaven” is yet. Leaven is something you mix with wheat and it changes the bread makeup. This is a spiritual principle that Jesus taught us to beware the Leaven of the Pharisees. The Pharisees would constantly take the word of God and add their own rules and words on top of the true words. Thus they diluted the truth with lies. I hope that you do understand who this enemy of God is? It is certainly Satan who has sown the seeds of the tares. Satan is a spiritual being created by God who was found to have sin in him. As we have learned that field represents the hearts of man. So we have seen that an enemy has come and planted “bad” seeds into the hearts of people in the world today.
Mat 13:26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
What we have clearly learned from what Jesus taught us is that God has enemies. Spiritual forces that manipulate and deceive people into believing things that are not from God. God has given to us the “Good Seed” and this implies that Satan has sown “Evil Seed”. That means that not everything that comes along being taught is what God said. We can clearly see that false religions in the world are a trick of the enemy to distract and deceive you. We can also understand that false teachers will also come along and try to deceive you with enticing words.
All of this is just the practice of people teaching right or wrong things. The sowers are the teachers in the world today and the seeds are the words spoken. It is very rare that any man on earth teaches the pure Bible concepts without tares. Why is this? It is primarily because no man knows the entire Bible and everything that is in it and everything that it means. There is no man on the planet that is God who knows everything. So therefore, we must all become tolerant of each other’s ignorance and strive to come up higher and learn the truth. We are all on the paths of learning, or at least we should be on these paths. If you are not still learning new things then you are stagnating in a cesspool of ignorance. God tells us all to “Get more knowledge, but with all of your getting, get also understanding”. Jesus taught us to “continue” in the Word. To continue is an ongoing process, a never ending state of learning. Only by continuing, Jesus said you could be called His disciples and only then would you actually know the truth and be set free.
This parable continues to discuss many things concerning the Kingdom of God. God tells us that the seeds of the Kingdom will continue to grow with the tares of the enemy as long as it is not time to harvest. God tells us, if he would have torn out the tares, he could have taken out some of the wheat because the roots can be entangled with each other. However, there is coming a harvest time and I believe it is very near. It would appear to me that those in the darkness are growing stronger in their evil ways. The evil in the world is running rampant and unless God does something soon this will not be a good place to be.
Seed concepts are critical to understand for every Christian. I believe that if you grow spiritually you will be able to know the times and the seasons and be able to recognize the times of the impending harvest.
If you would like to continue reading this series you can go to “Part 6“.
Understanding God’s Spiritual Power and the Power of Spirits!
(Ver 1.1) Today is the next lesson, “Part 9” in the series on understanding the Bible subject of spoken words. If you have not read this series from the beginning you should go and start reading with “Part 1“. Most Christians possess the belief that God is omnipotent. “Omnipotent is a theological term that is technically not found in the English translation of the KJV Bible. However the word “Almighty” (H7706, G3841) is found in the KJV Bible and it means “omnipotent. The word “Almighty” appears some 57 times in the KJV Bible with only 10 occurrences appearing in the New Testament and 9 of these are found in the book of Revelation. It appears to me that God emphasized His power and ability more directly in the Old Testament and has given the subject less emphasis in the New Testament based upon His word selection and distribution. The 9 instances of “Almighty” in Revelation seem to be related with God’s sovereign ability to execute judgment. Judgment is not a predominate theme of the New Testament except when you come to the book of Revelation. I did not say that you cannot find judgment in the N.T., I just said it was not the dominate theme of the church age. If you recall when Jesus was walking the earth, people brought a woman to Jesus who was caught in the act of adultery and Jesus’ response should have been that of a judge according to the law; however Jesus was mercy driven with compassion and told those who were without sin, to cast the first stone. However, did you ever think that the only one without sin in this group was Jesus and that He should have been the first one to cast the first stone, but did not? The mercy of God is a much greater predominate theme in the N.T. than the judgment of God. But that is another different subject to discuss at another time. Today we are talking about the subject of spiritual power and the power of spirits. Let’s look at the “Power” of God first. Does God have ALL Power?
2Co 6:18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
The Greek word G3841 translated as “Almighty” is a word meaning “all powerful” or “omnipotent”. God has the power, strength and ability to do anything. The power of God is massively demonstrated throughout the Old Testament. From the creation account in Genesis 1 all the way to the flood of Noah, to the scattering of people at the tower of Babel, to the demonstration of power before Pharaoh in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, to the miracles in the wilderness. There are just too many examples found in the Bible to list them all. So we can easily understand that God has great and awesome power. But, does God hold “ALL” power? That was my question originally. Meaning ONLY God has any power? A lot of religious people think in these terms and miss what the Bible says on the subject.
Let me introduce you to a new concept and another term used to describe nature and character of God other than as the “Almighty”. This new term that I will show you is used in the KJV Bible approximately 48 times; again 38 times in the Old Testament and only 10 times in the New Testament. This term or name of God reveals Him to be the “Most High God”.
Gen 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.
Reading this verse we can clearly see that God is described as being “Supreme”. Meaning among spirits there is none greater or more powerful than He is. God is at the top of the spiritual food chain, proverbially speaking. What do we learn from reading this verse? If there is a “Most High God”, then there are other gods that are below him in rank, power and ability. That statement might get some people upset at me, but yet I’m just reading the Bible and seeing what is written there. Can you understand what was said by God? You do understand that the author of the Bible does not need to qualify the name “God” with the adjective modifier of “Most High” if there are no other gods that exist? It only takes limited basic logic and very simple reasoning to see what God says in this verse. Of course some will try to say that God is the only “True God” and all of the others are just false imaginary gods. However, the title “True God” is also found in the Bible and it is a different Hebrew word than “Most High”:
Jer 10:10 But the LORD is the true God he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
We can clearly see that the LORD is called the “True God”. So we can automatically conclude that there are also false imaginary gods that also exist. But this verse also claims God is the “Living God” meaning these false imaginary gods are only defined as those that are dead or have no life in them. A false god would be like when people in the world worship idols, the objects made by the hands of man. These idols are “false and dead gods” and they have no power on the earth whatsoever. Another example of a false god would be like those found in mythology. False, gods like Atlas, Hermes, Mercury and etc. These are gods made up in the minds of men that do not have any basis for existence. So what we have learned is that there are several different types of gods in the world. We created the following list diagram explaining what we have just learned with our God on left and others mentioned or implied on the right.
| Biblical Title of God | Antonym Opposite |
| Almighty God | Limited god |
| True God | False god |
| Living God | Dead god |
| Most High God | Lesser god |
So what is my point? Where am I going with all of this? What I want you to see and learn is there are other gods in the world other than our Almighty God. I am not talking about Greek mythology or Roman mythology or any other kind of imaginary, fictitious of mythological deity powers. What I am about to show you are created spiritual beings in the Bible that God has called other types of “gods”. You can clearly see these gods exist by the implications that we have just read in the Bible from the names given to us by our God. Here is a N.T. verse that you should be aware of, but I’ll remind you of it:
2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
So who blinded the minds of all those that believe not in this world? This verse is not speaking of humans since they are the ones that have their minds blinded. No this verse is speaking of another spiritual power that exists in the world. This spiritual power is Satan and he is called the “god of this world”. This Greek word translated as “god” in this verse means “deity”. It can also mean “supreme”. This word occurs over 1000 times in the N.T. and is most often used for references to our God. For example in Matthew 1:23 where Jesus is described as “Emanuel” translated as “God” with us it contains the same Greek word. However, in 2 Cor 4:4 we have a new mystery being stated using the same Greek word in reference to Satan. Who gave Satan this title? Or did he steal it from someone? If Satan is called a god by the Most High God, do you accept it? In other words is God a liar? You see that is the problem with many Christians, they do not know that Satan exists and who he is. So if Satan is a god, what type of god would he be? He is not the “Most High”, nor is he the “Almighty God”. I cannot call him the “True God” either. He is certainly alive so he might fall into the living god category. It really depends upon your definition of death. Satan is not a physical being so he cannot die naturally. If you do not know it, you cannot kill a spiritual being or cause them to cease to exist. But, yet the Bible does talk about a “spiritual death” which can be defined as a separation from God. I believe that Satan is now and has been separated from God ever since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that if Satan would have known what was going to happen to himself, he would not have crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor 2:8).
Is Satan a lesser god than the Almighty God, I believe he is definitely on a lower spiritual plane than God Almighty. Satan is not omnipotent, and he is not omniscient, and neither is he omnipresent. So Satan qualifies as both a “lesser god” and a “limited god”. So the question arises does this god Satan have any power? I had one reader tell me that he didn’t think anyone could create anything other than the Most High God. God is the only being that has the power of creation. I’m not sure if I agree with that statement totally. Where in the Bible does it say that only God can create anything? If you know of a Bible verse like that I would be very pleased if you would share it with me. Also, please do not assume that I am saying anything that I have not said. God Almighty is the creator of everything that we see around us in our world. But, many people think that Satan has no power to do anything and that is just not what the Bible says. At least 3 times in Revelation the beast, the false prophet and Satan are stated as having done “miracles” (Rev 13:14, Rev 16:14, Rev 19,20). A miracle is defined as a “supernatural” sign and wonder. That tells me that Satan has significant abilities that he has not fully demonstrated to us. That tells me that Satan is not powerless. I learned a lot from what Jesus taught about Satan:
Luk 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the pwer of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Apparently Jesus did not think that Satan had no power either. There are two words in this verse, both translated as “power” but they are dramatically different Greek words. The first word translated as “power” (G1849) was spoken to us (the church) and it means spiritual “Authority”. Jesus gave the Church legal jurisdiction over Satan (serpent) and the rest of his demons (scorpions). The second word (G1411) translated as “power” is in direct reference to a symbolic serpent and some symbolic scorpions. These are the symbolic representations for the enemy of the church called Satan and his demons. This word for “power” means “miraculous power” or the “ability to do supernatural miracles”. So what is a miracle? A miracle would be anything that occurs that is not of the ordinary course of nature. If you scrape your leg and it bleeds, it will heal in the ordinary course of time and nature. However, if you lost your leg in a motorcycle accident and it grew back from a stump that is a miracle. So according to Jesus, Satan is capable of doing supernatural miracles. So do you understand that a spiritual being like Satan has a miracle working type of power? Jesus told us in John 10:10 that the thief came not but for to kill steal and to destroy. The thief is again a reference to “Satan”. To have power to kill and destroy something is the opposite power of giving life and creating new things. So does Satan have spiritual power and ability to do something supernatural in our world? I believe that the Bible says that he does. God’s word at the very least implies that Satan has great power in the spiritual realm. However, He is still well under the level of the Most High God in power and ability.
Then there are other references in the Bible that says people are gods. Jesus looked at the Jews in John 10:34 and said “is it not written in your law that I said ye are gods”? Jesus was quoting a scripture verse written in the O.T. in Psalm 82:6 where God told them they were gods. People in the church today struggle with believing that concept. Does man have the power and ability to do things in the spiritual realm or are we just limited to the natural realm? We understand from Genesis 1:26, that man was created in the image and in the likeness of the Most High God. If we were created to be like God Almighty that would mean that we had the similar features and characteristics that God had. If God had all power, we must have been created with the likeness of this power on a lower scale. You might call us gods of a lesser power. Here is another verse found in Psalms that speaks about the creation of man:
Psa 8:5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
As you can see, this verse places man in certain spiritual rank and position of ability. However, the translators really dis a very poor job with this verse ignoring what the original Hebrew language said. The translators did not believe that man had any spiritual significance. You see the Hebrew word (H430) translated as “angels” in this verse is the Hebrew name for God called “Elohiym”. This is the name of the Supreme God used in the O.T. Bible over 2000 times, and it is translated as “God” the majority of the time. What we discover from reading this verse, is that man (Adam) was created to be a little lower than the Supreme Most High God. That does not sound like anyone with No power or ability.
We are children of the Most High but not of the same ability to create worlds, planets and universes. One of our greatest weaknesses is that we lack the knowledge. While knowledge has increased rapidly in these last days that we live in, the ability of man to create real life in a test tube has not even come close to God’s knowledge. Man can create robots and simulated life but, we are not God and cannot create a human body. So man has creative power in a very limited form. Man can write new songs, books and create new movies. While all of these acts demonstrate God’s ability in us, we are still not anywhere close to God’s ability. We are lords, gods, and kings; we recognize our position but do not exalt ourselves above that position. We recognize that we have power, but note the fact that we are NOT all powerful. We can see ourselves as being so valuable to God that He came to purchase us with His own life and blood. We can therefore know that we are not worthless, we are not powerless and that we have great value to God. Knowing who you are and who you are not is very critical to knowing God. Recognizing your correct position in the spiritual food chain is critical for you to know your purpose in life. To know that you are not a nobody, while you recognize that you are also not the Most High.
So who knows how many religious people I have offended by telling the truth. If you are offended I’m sorry, but get over it and learn. We have learned from the words of God in the Bible that there are other spiritual beings in the Bible that are called gods. These spiritual beings have some power or limited power below the scale of the Most High God who holds Supreme Power. But, what is power? How does God define power in the Bible? To our natural minds power is simply someone’s strength and ability to use it. Naturally speaking the bigger your muscles are the stronger you are in this realm and this feature makes others think of you as being more powerful. Take the example of Olympic weight lifting. The strongest man can lift the greatest weight over his head. The winner is the one that lifts the most. That feat makes him the strongest man of the strong. That was a sports analogy of power. But, this is not what God says is power in the spiritual realm. What gives a spiritual being power?
Heb 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
You can read this verse and totally miss what God is saying. In this verse, God is informing us that His Word is His Power. The Word of God = the Power of God. Many modern Bible translations mix the words up in this verse and translate it as God’s “powerful word” or “mighty word”. However, if that is what God wanted to say he would have written it that way. God is not stupid; people are just ignorant and come up with these incorrect translations. The “Word” of His “Power” is exactly what God wanted you to see. This informs us that ALL of God’s power is in His Word. If you translate it the wrong way it only says God word has some of His power and this means that there is other power somewhere else not in His word. So if God’s Words are His Power, what are words? Words are thoughts, ideas, knowledge, understanding and wisdom expressed in a spoken language. I hope that you understand these basic concepts. To say that God is the Most High God would inform us that God holds ultimate knowledge, understanding and wisdom above all other spiritual creatures.
In the book of Revelation, Jesus is described 5 times as a being with a “sharp two-edged sword” coming out of his mouth (Rev 1:16, Rev 2:12, Rev 2:16, Rev 19:15, Rev 19:21). In Bible days when this was written, the sword was the weapon of war and wielded much power and strength by the one that was using it. It would be like someone with an AK-47 rifle today. These verses found in Revelation again confirm and demonstrate the location of the “Power” of God as being in His mouth and His spoken words. In Revelation 19:15 Jesus uses this sword to smite the nations that oppose him. In a recent news article I heard about a group of militia in some state that was arming themselves to help God fight the coming anti-Christ. I just laughed at their ignorance. Your little AR-15 will be no match for the Sword of God. What we have discovered is that God’s word is where His power is located and we can clearly understand this by reading Genesis 1 to observe how the world was created. In Genesis 1, God saw a problem, God said the solution and then the solution was. It is just very basic to conclude that it was the act of God speaking that released God’s power to create. I hope that you understand those concepts because I am not going to explain them in more depth today. Let’s move on to see what God says about this power in other verses in the Bible:
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Now we learn some new concepts. The sword of God’s mouth is not all of the swords that exist in the spiritual realm. If God’s sword is more powerful and sharper than all the rest, that makes God’s Sword the Sword Almighty, and the Most High Sword. But, do you see that there is more than one sword in the world? That is telling us that Satan has a sword coming out of his mouth, you have a sword coming out of your mouth and I have a sword coming out of my mouth. That implies power of a lesser or limited capacity. These are all just simple concepts, derived from reading the Bible. If you recall in Isaiah 14:13 Satan uses the sword of his mouth to say the following “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit…” and on I could go. Satan was wielding his power and making great plans to raise himself up to the Most High level.
But, God wielded His sword and said “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit”. Whose sword is sharper? Whose sword is greater? Whose sword will prevail in the end? These are valuable lessons for your life. Humble yourself and do not allow pride to exalt your own power, ability or knowledge to cause you to think that you can also be like the Most High.
If you would like to continue reading about the power of words you can go to “Part 10“.
Understanding Seeds in the Bible! Except a Seed Fall into the Ground and Die! Part 4
(Ver 2.2) This is now Part 4 of a series of lessons on seeds. Seeds are a vast complex subject found in the Bible. God uses natural seed concepts and applies them to spiritual things in repeated references found in the Bible. Today I will show you some more of the references that Jesus used to describe why He was here and how that He was both a physical and a spiritual “seed”. In the last lesson we reviewed the parable of the Sower and examined the symbolic elements to gain an understanding of what Jesus called the most important “parable”. In learning the concepts of this parable we can transfer much of that knowledge to other parables that Jesus taught us. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning, I would suggest that you stop and go back and start reading with “Part 1”. I have been going through the Bible showing you several different things that God calls seeds. Here is the original list again:
- Natural Grass Seeds
- Natural Fruit Seeds
- The Seed of a Man, His Sperm
- The Seed of a Woman, Her Children
- The Seed of a Man and a Woman, their offspring
- The Word of God
- The Seed of your Mouth, Your Words
- The Body of Jesus Christ
- The Church
- Your Body
These are of course not every type of seed mentioned in the Bible, only some of the ones that I wanted to show you. We have gone through and reviewed some verses about natural seeds in Genesis and learned some applicable laws that apply to every type of seed. The first law was that a seed always produces after its own kind. The second law of seeds is that the seed is always within itself. Both of these concepts transfer to many other types of seeds revealed to us in the Bible and you should understand them. If you recall I showed that every future generation or descendant of a man, is said to be in the man. God shows us that whatever the father did, is what their descendants did.
Today I want to show you another parable that Jesus taught us about seeds. After reading this you should become aware of why it is so important to know and to understand this subject. Let’s begin by reading in Matthew 13:31:
Mat 13:31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
Again, Jesus refers to the Kingdom of Heaven as being like a man who planted a seed. However, this lesson while very similar is very different than the previous lesson of the Parable of the Sower. Both are about a man, both are about seeds and both involve planting seed in the ground to grow something. But, this time the seed is said to be singular. This is a new perspective on an old subject about a new type of seed or a new concept about the nature of seeds. In the Parable of the Sower the seed represented the Word of God (Luke 8:11). However, in this parable the seed is something completely different while being completely the same thing at the same time. Hopefully you will understand why I said that as we continue to learn. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a man that plants “One” seed and it grows into a massive tree in a field. Jesus is referring to a specific seed and qualifies it to be a “mustard” seed. Any time you qualify a noun you limit the scope of the noun and narrow the meaning. In other words, you exclude every other seed, for the type described. What we can see is that Jesus was teaching that NOT just any seed will work; it has to be a mustard seed. The mustard seed is not widely used in the Bible, but perhaps we will look at some more references to it later. What we learn is a symbolic meaning that not just any type of seed will work for what God wants to accomplish. God selected a specific seed to accomplish His plan and we will soon discover that Jesus was this seed:
Mat 13:32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
Jesus calls this type of seed to be the least among all seeds. Jesus could be referring to the physical size of the seed, but yet I believe that is not what He is saying. We know today that there are many seeds that are smaller seeds than a mustard seed in the world. So Jesus must be referring to something else, a symbolic characteristic and not a physical attribute of the seed. What we should learn from this verse is that most great things have very humble beginnings. It is the classic analogy of the fact that the greatest oak trees come from little acorns. I know of practically nothing that starts big and just stays big. We are being presented a new perspective of the seed concept that all great things usually start as very small things. This goes against human nature, doesn’t it? Everyone wants to hit the lottery and win millions of dollars and then think that will solve all of their problems. However, God is teaching us a different lesson using seeds. This is part of the message that Jesus is attempting to get over to us. This is some of the key reasons of why the natural nation of Israel missed the first coming of their Messiah. Jesus did not come how they expected him to come, nor did He do what they desired Him to do. They were looking for a great and powerful savior and not a humble man that would not even save Himself. The disciples would ask Jesus “are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel now” (Acts 1:6). Israel was looking for the grand restoration and not for a small beginning. This is a classic example of the misunderstanding of the importance of how seeds work. Israel did not recognize the Seed of God as He walked among them. Jesus came to the earth as just a small, insignificant humble man. Jesus was God almighty who became like the least of all the men on the planet. Why would God almighty take the time to wash the feet of His disciples? Why did Jesus do this? It all goes back to seeds. God was planting a seed that would grow into a great spiritual Kingdom and not a physical Kingdom. This Kingdom did not come with a natural conquering mighty force, this Kingdom did not have a natural army with natural weapons, and this Kingdom did not come with much pomp and exalting circumstances. In fact this Kingdom cannot be physically seen at all, unless Christians choose to display it to others. Here is why Jesus said that He came to the earth:
Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth muchfruit.
Wow! That is a very deep statement about the reality of how seeds work. Who is Jesus talking about? Who is this seed? You should be able to see that Jesus is this seed that He is referring to. Jesus prophesied His death, His burial and the resulting fruit that would spring forth from that planting. Jesus predicts that there will be much fruit that will come from His death. How was Jesus able to do this? It was because Jesus understood the concept of seeds. Plant a little seed and get a great harvest. From little humble beginnings can grow great and mighty things. This is a key seed principle and law that applies to what God was doing on the earth through Jesus Christ. In John 12:24, Jesus says that a kernel of corn (a seed) will be alone if it does not die. I believe that God is trying to teach us that the Seed of Jesus has been planted to produce more people in the world like Jesus. This is just a basic typology of how the seed produces more of itself in the earth. Just ONE little seed planted can produce a huge harvest over time. Let me show you some prophetic verses in the O.T. concerning Jesus:
Jer 23:5 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
You can read the Bible without studying and totally miss what is said. In this verse if you do not look up the definition of the key words you will breeze right over what God is trying to teach you about. The Key word that I want to look at is “Branch”. It is qualified to be a righteous Branch so we know this is Jesus. The Hebrew word “Branch” in this verse is a word that mean “sprouts”, “springs up”, “buds”. These are all “SEED” concept words. You plant a righteous seed and you get a righteous harvest. That is what God is attempting to get you to see. The coming Messiah was a SEED man! Let me show you another verse of prophecy about this seed of God:
Eze 34:29 And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.
Here is another verse about the coming Messiah and Israel missed it. God is saying I will “raise up” a “PLANT” of character. This word for “Plant” in the Hebrew means something that is planted in a garden. Sure sounds like a seed to me, how about you? I just wanted to show you some O.T. examples of this coming seed so that you would not think that I just make this stuff up. It is really amazing what the Bible says when you can see it.
What have we learned? We learned that God planted a seed and this was a lowly humble man called Jesus Christ. But, through this humble beginning we see the growth that has transpired over the course of 2000 years. The church of Jesus Christ is now greater in strength and numbers than at any time in the past 2000 years. I am a firm believer that Jesus is expecting a triumphant church, a great church that has made herself ready. God planted the original seed and it has grown over the course of time and developed further into this great prophesied tree that the birds of the air can now build nests within.
So maybe I should explain a little better the difference between the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Mustard Seed. You see in the parable of the sower, the seed is the Word of God. The Word of God is being spread by the teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ throughout the Gospels. But, if you have studied the Bible you also know that Jesus Christ is the Word of God!. According to John 1:1, “in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God”. By simple laws of mathematics we can substitute “Seed” for “Word” in this verse and see that it now says this:
Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Seed, and the Seed was with God, and the Seed was God.
From the laws of mathematics we can apply the truth that if A=B, then B=A and “Word” = “Seed” and see a new simple truth, that God is the Seed and that God had the Seed within Himself. Then we can learn from reading down in the chapter the following:
Joh 1:14 And the Seed (Word) was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
God’s Seed takes on flesh and lives and walked among us. We can now better understand how Jesus can call himself the Seed. We can also better understand how God can plant this Seed Jesus and expect a spiritual harvest. Jesus was a spiritual seed of God and God now expects a harvest of more spiritual fruit. God believes that you can plant a seed and get a harvest. The ending of a matter is always greater than its beginning. I think where people get confused is in the fact that Jesus is multiple seeds simultaneously and this certainly makes our life more complicated in understanding the differences. Let me give you a list of the types of Seed Jesus is Associated with in the Bible:
- Word of God (Parable of Sower)
- Spiritual Seed of God (Mustard Seed)
- Natural Seed of God (Son of God)
- Natural Seed of Mary (Son of Man)
- Natural Seed of David (Son of David)
- Natural Seed of Abraham (Son of Abraham)
- Natural Seed of Adam (Son of Man)
This is probably not a complete list, but it is all that I can come up with right now. If I locate other reference I will update this list. I will end this blog here and hope that you have learned some new things from the Bible. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series, you can go to “Part 5“.
Understanding Seeds in the Bible! The Parable of the Sower! Part 3
(Ver 1.4) 
This is a very advanced set of Bible lessons about the concepts, laws and information found in the Bible about “seeds”. As we study this subject we discover how these principles apply both to the natural realm as well as the spiritual realm. This is now Part 3 of the series and if you have not read from the beginning, I would suggest that you go and start your reading with “Part 1”. We have already covered a lot of information found in the Bible, some of which you may have heard before, but certainly a lot that is new to you. Studying the Bible on any subject is very difficult. Because God has chosen to hide information, and finding every reference to a subject is very challenging. To study the subject of “Seeds” we really need to search the Bible for every verse with that word in it and determine what it is saying. Since there is more than one thing in the Bible called by the name “seed” we must learn what each one is and determine if they are related to any other. But, that is not all of the verses on the subject. What we must realize is that there are related subjects that go along with it, such as soil, earth, rain, water, light, warmth, planting, sowing, fruit and on and on I could go. Then what about enemies to seeds, such as birds, insects, weeds, drought, rocks, heat, cold, floods and again on and on I could go. There are a vast number of dependent subjects that you should learn to see how they apply to what we learn about “seeds”. I am trying to demonstrate how complicated studying the Bible can be and why so many people do not know what the Bible actually says. In order to study the Bible correctly, you must dig and research the subject as thoroughly as possible. This also involves you doing a significant amount of work to find what God has hidden for you.
Today I am going to continue teaching on “seeds” in the Bible with a new perspective that is certainly very important to know. Jesus taught us many things when He was here physically on the earth. However, He placed an extraordinary emphasis on a certain subject as being a key to understanding all the other subjects found in the Bible. Jesus said that this one concept that He taught was more important to understand than any of the others found in the Bible. This critical subject was based upon “Seeds”. You can find this teaching in three books of the Gospel; in Luke 8, Matthew 13 and Mark 4. Let’s start our lesson by reading Mark 4:26:
Mar 4:26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;
Apparently the lesson is about the Kingdom of God, so right off of the bat we know it is of great importance. We also understand it is a spiritual Kingdom and not a physical or natural kingdom. At least I hope you understand these types of Bible basics. What does God tell us the Kingdom of God is like? God clearly says it is like a man who plants seeds into the ground. Jesus is teaching using the format of a parable that contains natural things that we can see, to help explain spiritual things that we cannot see. Then consider this, is Jesus a man? Is Jesus THE man that this parable is referring to? I think back and believe that when Jesus was on the earth, He was exactly this man. Since Jesus has returned to heaven, it gets more complicated. Jesus is still the man, but since He is not here physically anymore, He uses people like me who are here on the planet. So while I’m not God, I am a tool used by God. What I want you to see, is that God still uses people today to reach people. Now let’s go back to Mark 4:3 and discover the key Seed lesson that Jesus wants you to see:
Mar 4:3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
Jesus informs us that a sower went out to sow. When you sow, you are doing what? Of course you are planting seeds in a field or a garden. Sowing involves a spreading of seeds into the ground. So Jesus is discussing a farming lesson. I want to jump down to the explanation of the parable and interject the important stuff that we need to see while we are studying the actual parable about seeds. Here is what Jesus says about this parable being a key to understanding all the others:
Mar 4:13 And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?
It would appear to me that if you can understand this parable, then you are at the crossroads of understanding every parable that Jesus taught. This has some vast implications attached to it, so pay close attention. So here is Jesus’ explanation of what the sower is and what the seed is:
Mar 4:14 The sower soweth the word.
Now Jesus begins to let us in on the secret, the sower is planting words. Not just any words, though these are the Words of God according Luke 8:11. However, we can also understand the concept that any words spoken can become seeds. The problem is that many of these words are lies and half-truths and thus plant wrong things. Only God’s Word is Absolute Truth. What we have discovered is that words are seeds. We can also say seeds are words. We can also see that a sower is anyone that opens his or her mouth and speaks words. How do the Genesis seed laws apply to words? We have clearly learned that seeds always produce after their kind. What is the Word of God a kind of? What kind does the Word of God produce? We have also learned that seeds are always in itself. Now let’s examine some more of the parable:
Mar 4:4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.
What Jesus does is give us some new related topics about the planting of these seed words. However, Jesus starts to shift the focus off of the sower and the seed and they are not technically mentioned after the beginning. Jesus begins to describe the types of soil or ground that are being planted in. Jesus also starts to reveal that the soil, the seed and the sower all have enemies. The fowls of the air come to devour the seed and thus render them harmless, non-productive or ineffective. Since the parable involves symbolic natural representations, we know that the birds of the air represent spiritual beings that we cannot see or perceive with our natural senses. So let’s examine the explanation of Jesus for these new symbolic factors given to us:
Mar 4:15 And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.
Jesus informs us that the soil is representative type of the hearts of people. The human heart is not the physical blood pump organ. The human heart in the Bible is their spirits. Jesus also says that Satan is the enemy that is trying to steal the words of God from our hearts. Ephesians 2:2 calls Satan the prince of the power of the air. The earth’s atomosphere is the current domain of Satan. This verse says that Satan comes immediately to steal the seed from us and that would be really bad news, if Satan could just take the word sown at will. However, by reading in Matthew we learn some additional details on this subject.
Mat 13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
This is why it is important to read every occurence of a lesson so that we can learn all of the details. This information in Matthew does not contradict the account written down by Mark, it only helps us to see what God is talking about more clearly. What are the potential outcomes whenever you sit to listen to anyone speak at a lecture or in a class room at school? I beleive that there are potentially three possibilities that can occur and your determination will cause the teacher’s words to either be effective or to be ineffective. You can ignore the teacher, you can hear and listen to the words only, or you can hear the words and get the understanding of them. Hearing anything valuable to know and not understanding any of it does you little to no good. In other words you derive no benefit of knowing the information.
There are a lot of people in the world that know Einstein’s equation of E=MC2, but very few that can actually teach you anything about what it means. So what we discover is that understanding what you hear is the greater key factor to whether the devil can come and take it away from you. That is a very important factor to learn. Understanding of any subject is the key to holding on to that subject. Keep in mind that we are talking about spiritual things here and not natural things. We have spiritual seed which are spiritual words being planted into spiritual beings, which are responsible to hear them and then to understand them or the spiritual enemy, will come and take them from you. Read through the rest of the parable and then I will discuss the symbols given in more detail:
Mar 4:5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:
Mar 4:6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
Mar 4:7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
Mar 4:8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.
As you read through the rest of the parable, you discover God’s goal for giving us His seed. God is looking for a people to produce spiritual fruit. The majority of the parable is a lesson of why people either produce this fruit or why they are unable to produce this fruit. If you know anything about farming, you know that the soil is not the master of the seed, but the seed is the master of the soil. Whatever is planted into the soil is that which is harvested. If you are the soil that Jesus is speaking of, then it matters what you allow in your ears. Do you understand why Satan has dominated the TV and radio air waves with lies and perversions? I guess we should stop and examine the soil in more detail. There are actually 6 different types of soil listed in the parable. They are generally representative of 4 different types of people on the planet and the list of soil types does not exclude anyone. If you analyze the list closely you can see that there are actually two groups of 3 that are being mentioned. There are three soils that are representative of saved fruitful Christians and 3 soils that did not receive the seed and let it produce any fruit at all:
| Type of Soil | Description |
| Wayside | These are those that can hear, but that do not understand what is said. Therefore Satan can steal the truth away from them very easily. |
| Stony Ground | These are those that turn away because of affliction or persecution. They lack any depth or foundational root knowledge. They are easily offended. |
| Among Thorns | These are those that care more about the things in the world, the distraction of riches, the natural lusts of the world. |
| Good Soil | These are those that produce fruit. A return of seed is multiplied to produce a bountiful supply. Some 30 times, some 60 times and some 100 times. |
We can learn a significant amount of information about why some people produce fruit and others are unable to. What have we learned? We have learned that God uses people to teach the Word of God and these are those that are sowing “good seed”. However, we have also learned that this good seed has many enemies. These things are designed to keep you from hearing and understanding the truth. Satan is hard at work trying to keep people from bearing spiritual fruit for God. God is looking for the spiritual fruit of the earth and that is one of the key factors that is keeping Him from returning for us today. God sees the harvest field is potentially great on the earth and God wants everyone to come to the knowledge of the truth of God’s Word (2 Peter 3:9). The Bible says God has long patience for this spiritual harvest of fruit (James 5:7). Here are the key symbolic elements listed in the parable and the descriptive meaning of each:
| SYMBOL | DESCRIPTION |
| SEEDS | Spoken Word/Words |
| SOWER | One who teaches with Words |
| Sowing | The process of teaching people |
| SOIL | The hearts/spirits of the people |
| Wayside Ground | Those who are easily deceived, they have no understanding and barely hear it at all |
| Stony Ground | Those that are easily tricked, those that have only a shallow understanding, those that cave to pressure, those who are easily offended |
| Good Ground | Those that hear and understand the Word of God and do not allow it to be stolen from them. |
| Evil Ground | Those that are deceived, lost and asleep in the darkness. |
| Roots | Those who have a strong foundation of the Word of God and are able to drink and partake of the Spirit of God. |
| Birds of the Air | Spiritual enemies that try to take the truth from you. Satan and his demons. |
| Thorns | Natural and Carnal things that take your attention away from the truth. It can be money, sex, drugs, alcohol, food, fame |
| Unfruitful | Those that are spiritually barren, unable to produce spiritual fruit, those who are nigh to burning |
| Fruitful | Spiritual Growth and Maturity, those who are doers of the Word of God and NOT hearers only. |
| Fruit | Spiritual results of those which God is seeking to find and harvest into His barn |
As you can see there are many valuable things to learn from this parable. Seeds play a key role in the spread of the Kingdom of God. Seed laws play a key role in understanding this teaching. God’s word will always produce more people like God. Those that let God’s word in, will grow and mature to be more like the one that gave us these SEED Words. It is the spiritual seed law of Genesis repeated in the spiritual diemension. A seed will always produce after its own kind. The planting of God’s spiritual seed will always produce a spiritual harvest. I think I will end this lesson here for now and expand it in my next lesson.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can continue by going to “Part 4“.
O Lord, Guard The Door of My Mouth!
(Ver 1.3) This is now “Part 8” in a series of lessons about spoken words. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would suggest that you go and start with “Part 1“. Did you ever realize that your mouth was an opening to your spirit? You are a spirit being that lives in a physical body. Your physical body has doors and windows that allow your spirit to express itself and to learn new things. Your ears are a window to sounds, words and things to hear from God with. Your eyes are also windows for light, to observe and see things that are around you. These are one way gates into your spirit. But, your mouth is a two way gate that breaths air in and exhales air out. Your mouth also takes in natural food and drink for the nourishment of your physical body. But, the most important thing that your mouth does is speak words that originate from your spirit. Your mouth is the only exit for spiritual expression that you have. Your spoken words are the keys to everything that you do in this world. I will go a step further and tell you that your spoken words are the keys to everything that happens to you in this world. For example, your spoken words will become the key to your salvation or your damnation to hell. You may not understand that statement but it is based upon scripture and how God designed the process to work. Let’s start the Bible study by confirming that your words are the spiritual expression made manifest in this world:
Mat 15:18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
As you can clearly see from what Jesus teaches us, the words of your mouth are an extension of your spirit. Whenever the Bible talks about your heart, it is usually a figurative meaning referring to your internal spirit. The spirit of your being is the innermost real you that will live forever and I hope you understand this. The heart of a man is similar to the heart of a tree or the heart of an apple. The term is used to describe the center inner core of the object and that is the unseen spirit of the human in God’s triune design. Let’s look at another important verse that Jesus speaks on this subject of words originating from the human spirit:
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Jesus again tells us where words come from. The Spirit of God that was inside of Jesus’ body produced the words that gave us life. Jesus clearly tells us that it is the spirit that causes the flesh to live. He then says that His words are this Spirit! What we learn from what Jesus was teaching is that every person has a spirit and this unseen spirit is expressed in the spoken words coming from out mouth in our world. The only difference between our words and God’s Words, are His words are based upon infinite knowledge, understanding and wisdom and ours are too often just baseless ramblings built upon our own extraordinary ignorance. Let’s continue researching the connection between the spirit and the mouth, because God says in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses let every word be established (Mat 18:16):
2Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the SPIRIT OF HIS MOUTH, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
In this verse in 2 Thessalonians, God says that Jesus will do something with the Spirit of His Mouth that will consume the wicked. What do you think this is? Do you think that Jesus will breath fire like a dragon or are you smart enough to know that God just has to say a couple of words and whatever He says happens. What we learn from this verse is further conformations of spoken words being directly connected to spirits. Spoken word are not really just a connection to the spirit but more the displayed expression of the spirit. Technically speaking spoken words and spirits are one in the same in the eyes of God. God’s words are God and God is His Word (John 1:1).
Mat 12:34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
As you can read again, Jesus connects the heart/spirit of man to the spoken words of a man. Jesus speaking to the Jews, says how can you speak anything good? You have to have good in your spirit before you speak anything good from your lips. Jesus is implying that we can speak something good, but first we have to deposit something good in us in abundance. These are verses that demonstrate to us that man was made in the image and likeness of God. Jesus clearly links us to be like God in this capacity. Our words are linked to our spirit, just as His words were linked to His Spirit.
I have been doing a series of lessons on the spoken words coming from your mouth. We have learned from God’s word that we can curse people with our words and we can bless people with our words. We can speak good things and we can speak evil things. We can proclaim the truth and we can speak lies. The mouth is a weapon of incredible potential that we can do great good with or create great harm to ourselves and others. The same mouth has the potential to achieve great good in the world as well as great deception. That is why the Bible writes us a verse of prayer that asks God to place a guard at the door of our mouths. If you go to Europe and other places where they have palaces, the occupants are many times protected from the evil of others on the outside by placing guards at the gates of entrance or exit. This is not what the Bible is saying but the concepts are still applicable. Let’s start by reading the verse that reveals our mouth to be a door in need of a guard:
Psa 141:3 Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.
A watch is someone who stays up to guard an entrance of a city. In Bible days a city would have great walls around it and they would place men on top of the walls during the day and night to watch for danger. Their job was to stay awake during those specific hours and to keep vigilant watch for any approaching danger. When danger was observed, the watchman would sound an alarm to wake the city to counter the impending danger. While you might try to apply this to the verse in Psalms, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense in that regard. You might need to watch what you eat occasionally, but God is speaking more about spiritual things that you need to keep a watch on than any natural things that are trying to enter in your body. Let’s get one more witness to the fact that our mouth is a gate before we continue:
Mic 7:5 Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.
What we have is another verse found in the Bible that says your mouth is a gate. A gate is a door or entrance to a realm that you either want to keep people out of, or keep things within. You never design a building without doors, otherwise you can’t go in and you can’t get out. So what is God trying to keep from exiting your mouth by placing His guard upon it? Why would it be bad for you if something came out that shouldn’t come out? That is an amazing question to ponder! If your wrong spoken words had no consequences attached to them, it really would not matter if we had a guard, would it? However, God is implying that your words have great consequences positive or negatively upon your life and that is a potentially bad thing for you if you do not understand the concepts being revealed by God.
Pro 6:2 Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.
When you learn to see what the Bible says, you become infinitely more aware of what you say. According to God, the words of your mouth can cause you to become a captive of your enemy. A snare is a trap. A trap is a deceptive device that renders you a captive. As you can clearly read in this verse, God says that you are “taken” (caught in a pit) by the words of your mouth. These have to be wrong negative spoken words or that would mean that any words spoken could be a pitfall for us. That statement would also indicate by the law of antithesis that you can be “freed” by the right words of your mouth. The things the Bible says about your words are some of the strongest warnings that God gives us in the Bible. It is so obvious to me that many people do not heed the warning of God and speak some crazy things. People let words come out of their mouths that I’m sure must cause God to cringe with disappointment.
Pro 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
God declares that your tongue has power. If you refuse to see this or to ignore it, does it cause it not to be true? If you do not believe in gravity, would that affect the law of gravity if you wanted to jump off a tall building? Of course it does not, you are still going die. Your wrong belief never overrides the truth. The same is true of ignorance, your ignoarce of the law does not affect your punishment for the violation of that law. So when God says that Death or Life is in the power of the tongue, does that make it not true, if you do not believe it? Again it does not! What God is revealing to us is that we have been given choices to make. What we achieve in life or that which happens to us in this life is determined by the choices that we made and words that we have spoken. Obviously many people do not believe this and they can’t figure out why things have happened in their life. Some think it is just bad karma, bad luck, or possibly just amazing coincidences or accidents that occur in their lives. Maybe you can discover a Bible verse that says that, but so far I have not found any.
So if God wants you to pray and ask Him to put a guard on your mouth, what is He trying to keep you from saying? It could be just simply that you should say only good things to people, good things about people and not to speak negatively about others and that is certainly applicable. However, God seems to indicate from the verses that we have studied today that there is much more to it than that in the Bible. If you can be taken captive or a prisoner just by your wrong spoken words or even die because of your words of death, would it be important not to speak those words that cause those negative results? I believe that it is entirely meaningful given the verses that we have just studied. So a watch on the gate of your mouth is not a physical guard to keep things out. I believe it is a spiritual guard that keeps you from harming yourself and others that you live with speaking words with negative consequences. What about your children, for example. If your words can affect you they can also affect your family and those that you are responsible for. Only you can allow God to place a guard on your mouth. God will not violate your rights or your will. God will also not force you into saying anything correctly. As you learn to cooperate with God, you will learn more about how the words of your mouth have great significance and are very important to keep under control. You should go and review the book of James and see what God says about the tongue and how important it is to manage.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on spoken words, you can go to “Part 9“.
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