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WHY WE SHOULD READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
The Apostle John
tells us that the
Bible (the Word) is Jesus Himself. “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. And the Word became 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” (John 1:1 & 14, emphasis
added). Jesus said, “Whoever eats My
flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last
day” (John 6:54). By reading the
Bible, we are obeying Christ’s command.
It is the spiritual food we need every day, to abide in Him.
Truth plus error equals error. Another way
of saying it is; a little truth
mixed with a little error becomes all error. The Bible puts it this way, “A
little
leaven leavens the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9). There are too many people
out there giving us
conclusions about diverse subjects in God’s word, without complete
scriptural support. Even worse, Satan
sets traps for our downfall, by using men (knowingly and unknowingly) who use
the word of God out of context for the support of false doctrines. They are
wrongly dividing God’s word.[i] Some are actually wolves in sheep’s clothing
deliberately distorting God’s word and teaching a false gospel. If we
are not constantly reading the Bible,
how are we to know them? That’s why we
need to read the scriptures for ourselves.
The Preacher
Was Wrong
I was very surprised when I heard
someone tell me that the Pastor of their church had said, “God is not sovereign.”
When I asked, how he could say such a thing,
my friend said he was not sure but it had something to do with God’s covenant
with Abraham, which we are parties to.
Somehow, this Pastor thinks our covenant with God prevents Him from
being sovereign. I can only surmise that
this preacher thinks God gave up His sovereignty when He made the covenant with
Abraham. It appears he believes, because
of that, God can no longer force man to do His will and thus does not have
preeminent; indisputable power.
Therefore, he concludes that God is not sovereign. How wrong can that
be? It is this type of un-thought-out statements
from some Pastors that bring a disservice and confusion to congregants who are
not sure of what the Bible says. A
Sovereign is a supreme ruler who has preeminent; indisputable power; a
sovereign right. My friend’s Pastor does
not understand how God always has indisputable power. God only chooses not to
use it
against man’s will; the power is still His. God is sovereign! He is never wrong! We need to be reminded of this fact in
order
to understand how, because it is His will, things may happen in our life that
we don’t like.
A Personal
Example of Sovereignty
I was very proud and touched
when our
son Jay, and his wife Kristin, named their first-born son after Jay’s brother,
Wesley. One day Lucky and I were
visiting the family when she pointed out to me how Jay’s actions were a good
example of how God gives us the freedom of choice and yet remains
sovereign. Our grandson Wesley was just
two years old when he clearly let us know he had a will of his own. We heard
Jay tell his son to put away one of
his toys. Wesley, exercising his will,
refused to obey. Jay, having
indisputable power over Wesley, could have carried him over to the toy and
forced him to pick it up. However, he
elected to give Wesley a choice. Jay
told him he could either pick up his toy, or be taken to his room for a ‘time
out.’ By doing nothing, Wesley let his
dad know his decision. Therefore, Jay
took his son to his room. Just so, our
sovereign God gives us a choice. We can
accept His son Jesus as our savior and be reconciled with Him, or we can refuse
His son and be condemned to hell. By
doing nothing, we are giving God our decision to reject His offer of
salvation. Therefore, we condemn
ourselves to hell and God remains sovereign!
We Can
Disagree In Grace
I know there will
be people
who will disagree with some of the things I have written. Any number of people can look at the same
scripture and come to any number of different conclusions. However, we should be able to share our
differences without accusing each other of being wrong. Who knows, we both may well be in error. One of the teachers in my church, and I,
disagree on the timing of The Rapture.
However, we still love and value each other in spite of our respective
differences. As long as we can agree
together that Jesus Christ is the Son of God come in the flesh, that He died on
the cross for our sins, arose again and ascended to heaven, we are brothers in
the Lord. It really doesn’t
matter
whether we agree on some of the other subjects or not. Therefore, I am not asking you to believe
everything I've written, on my word alone.
I believe I’ve given adequate scriptural support for my conclusions. Even if you see things differently, I pray we
would still remain united together in Christian love, because of our mutual
love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Many times assumptions are made without
support of scripture. I have moved
outside of this “assumptions box” while staying in the Bible in order to find
truth. If you know of any scripture that
contradicts what I have said please contact me and let me know what it is. I
always want to be teachable and am willing
to change my viewpoint when I find scriptures that require me to do so. In the
past, we have believed our teachers
opinions about spiritual matters without confirming them in the word of
God. Over thirty-six years ago, because
of my acceptance without confirmation of someone else’s teaching, I committed
the sin of presumption. That sin brought
about great tragedy in my life. I don’t
blame anyone other than myself. I had
assumed the leaders, whom I studied under, knew what they were talking
about. However, it was my
responsibility to read the Bible before accepting their view of what faith
was. I alone will have to answer to God
for my actions, not my teachers.
For that reason carte blanche acceptance of assumptions and tradition
and unsupported doctrine must end. God
gave us teachers to help guide us in our search for His truth in the
word of God.
We Must Be
Teachable
The pride of life can be an
unwillingness to be teachable. This is
what prevents us from changing our opinions even when others point out
scriptural evidence that is contrary to the way we believe. It is this, pride
of life, that produces an
inability in us to say, “I was wrong.” I
want always to have a teachable spirit.
None of us will be perfect in knowledge this side of Heaven. It is my
prayer that I can inspire members of
the body of Christ to read their Bibles.
In this way, we can find out for ourselves what God is saying to His
people, and not depend on someone else’s, possibly erroneous, conclusions. I hope I have stirred your interest
enough to send you to the Bible to find your own answers. I pray that you will
(as I do) search God’s
word with a teachable spirit. What I
believed last year is different than what I believe today. I’ll keep searching.
One final word; it is okay to ask
someone what the Bible is saying to them, and take into account their point of
view, but don’t settle solely on their answer for yourself. Learn to recognize
assumptions, and think
outside the box while remaining in the Bible, to come to your own
conclusions. Remember, while some
assumptions we make about subjects in the Bible are true, some are not. Therefore
we must never accept an opinion,
derived from an assumption, as doctrine.
Ask the Holy Spirit, “What does the Bible have to say to me?”
And that’s my opinion
Larry Parker
May
1, 2010
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
God’s
Promises
Are Conditional
Salvation
is a costly gift freely given from Father God to anyone who wants to go to
heaven. John 3:16 is the most quoted
verse in the Bible. “For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” However,
there is a condition one must meet, for
salvation.
As the
scripture says we
must believe in Him, i.e. that He died on the cross for our sins and rose from
the dead. Jesus said, “…Repent, and
believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15).
The apostle Peter said, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your
sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence
of the Lord” (Act 3:19). These are the conditions
we must meet; believe in Jesus, repent and ask forgiveness.
Just
as there are conditions
for salvation there are conditions for all of God’s promises including healings
and blessings. Preachers who teach, you
can have promises without conditions are doing the same thing Satan did when
tempting Jesus (see Matthew 4:1-11). Satan
takes scriptures out of context and misrepresents them by leaving out God’s
conditions in order to fool you into tempting God. When you act on these misused
verses without
meeting the conditions, you are tempting God.
This is a sin! Jesus said, “…
'YOU SHALL NOT TEMPT THE LORD YOUR GOD' (Matthew 4:7)."
The
following verses are misused to tell you, you can have
anything you want: “…ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you”
(John 15:7). “And whatever we ask we
receive from Him…” (1John 3:22). Some
preachers say, “All you have to do is
ask God and believe Him for it, and you will receive it. If you don’t
receive it, it’s your fault
because you don’t have enough faith.”
Are these scriptural statements meant for us to
claim whatever we want? The correct
answer is, “No.” But there are popular
teachers who say, “Yes.” They use these verses
to encourage us to build up, what they incorrectly call faith; to claim healing
and riches for ourselves. They justify
their teaching by quoting 2Corinthains 1:20 which says, “For all the promises
of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen…”
The only condition they mention is that you must sow monetary seeds into
a ministry [hopefully theirs] for a harvest of material blessings.
However,
we must stop
burying our heads in the sands of “You can have what you want, when you want it”
false teaching. The conditions from
John 15:7 – left out by untruthful teachers are, “If
you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will…” And in 1John
3:22 they omit, again, “If you
abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will…” However, by reading
the conditions in
scripture, we learn we must be abiding
in Jesus and His Word before we can receive anything we want.
Abiding
in Jesus means we pray without ceasing; we are seeking His will and His timing
for what we want and are obedient to His Word.
It also means we are willing to wait, with confidence in Him, knowing He
will accomplish what He wants in our life.
We must always wait on the Lord’s timing.
I
would like to point out two more scriptures that have been misused in a way
that causes people to tempt God. In
Matthew 17:20 it says, “…assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a
mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it
will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” We are taught all
you need do is have a
little faith, i.e. make yourself believe you have it and you will have it. What
is left out is the fact that we are to
look to Jesus (a condition) who is the Author and finisher of our faith (see
Hebrews 12:2). It is not something we
can generate on our own. We must wait
for Jesus to give it to us.
Mark
11:23 is also misused by telling us we can have what we say if only we will,
will ourselves to believe. The scripture
says, “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed
and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that
those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” What
is not mentioned when they use this
verse is that the condition, “does not doubt in his heart” is not provided by
our will power but by Jesus, the Author of our faith. Therefore we must wait
on Him!
The Lord’s
Timing “Then He [Jesus] spoke a parable to them, that men
always ought to pray and not lose heart,” (Luke 18:1). In 1Thessalonians
5:17 we read, “pray without
ceasing,” That means even though we
may not get what we want we must continue to pray.
We are called to pray for the peace of Jerusalem
(Psalms 122:6), however, it will not happen until Jesus returns. We are called
to pray “…Even so, come
[quickly] Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20). However, it will not happen
until the rapture.
We are encouraged to pray for healing,
however, it will not happen until the fullness of God’s time. (It is also
true that sometimes it is the
Lord’s will that healing be immediate.) Abraham prayed for his son of promise,
Isaac. The promise was not fulfilled until
twenty-five years later. Hanna prayed
many years for her son, Samuel before he was born. Abraham and Hanna’s
prayers were only
answered in God’s timing. In
other words prayers are answered when God says, “It is time.”
Sometimes God has an outright “no” to some of our prayers.
A good example of that is when Paul prayed
for his “thorn” to be removed. 2Corinthains
12:9 records our Lord’s answer, “And He [God] said to me [Paul], "My grace
is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Paul showed
his great faith when he continued
the verse with, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Every one of us must develop that kind of faith in these “last days.”
Psalms 119:71 says, “It is good
for me that I have been afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes.” David Guzik, who serves as Senior
Pastor for the Generation Bible College, a ministry of Calvary Chapel of Santa
Barbara California, explains Psalms 119:71 this way:
… The
Psalmist speaks here of lessons learned the hard way. There was a time when he
was far more likely to go astray from God's word and the wise life revealed
there. Yet, under a season of
affliction, he was now devoted to the word of God.
Our trials sometimes act as guardrails on the side of a dangerous road, keeping
us safely on the path. Prosperity and ease can be like gaps in the guardrail,
where we can easily go astray. This principle has worked its way in the life of
virtually everyone who has pursed God. This is one reason why God appoints
affliction for His people (1 Thessalonians 3:3).
The
eleventh chapter of Hebrews has been called the chapter of faith. Men and women
are listed who received affirmative
answers to their prayers; however some did not receive what they asked for,
this side of heaven. But they are all
listed as men and women of faith. Real
faith is confidence in Jesus. We are
confident that He will do what is best for us; when it is best for us. The bottom
line is, GOD IS IN CONTROL. Therefore, we must learn to submit to
Him. When we do, we will experience a
great joy we can never know otherwise. We
can always have great joy in the strength and salvation of the Lord (see Psalms
21:1).
And that’s my opinion.
Larry
Parker July
1, 2012
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
THE LAST TRUMPET
In
the Bible, we read from the book of Revelation that the apostle John is given a
vision while he is on the island, which is called Patmos. “I was in the
Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I
heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying, "I am the Alpha and
the Omega, the First and the Last," and, "What you see, write in a
book and send it to the seven churches… which are in Asia: to Ephesus,
to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to
Laodicea" (Revelation 1:10-11).
Jesus
has a message for the seven churches in Asia, “He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the churches…” (Revelation 2:7). He points
out to each one (writing to them
through John) about their different strengths and weaknesses. However, the Messiah
has the same message to
all the churches in that they are to, hear Him, and be overcomers. What are
they to hear, and what are they to
overcome? I believe Jesus, through His
revelation, is about to warn the churches of the coming persecution from Satan
through godless men. He encourages His
Church (including the Church today) by revealing to them the rewards of
listening to His warning and overcoming such persecution:
I will give [the overcomer] to eat from
the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God. [The overcomer] shall not be hurt by
the second death. I will give
[the overcomer] some of the
hidden manna to eat. And I will give him[/her]
a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except
him [/her] who receives it. …to
him[/her, the overcomer] I will
give power over the nations— [The
overcomer] shall be clothed in
white garments, and I will not blot out his[/her] name from the Book of Life;
but I will confess his[/her] name before My Father and before His angels. He who overcomes, I will make him[/her]
a pillar in the temple of My God, and he[/she] shall go out no more. I will
write on him[/her] the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the
New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write
on him[/her] My new name. I
will grant [the overcomer] to sit
with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
THE SEVEN SEALED SCROLL CONTAINS GOD’S
WRATH
The
scenario of the book of Revelation is played out by a scroll with seven
seals. The scroll John saw contains the final wrath of God, which cannot occur
until the seals are broken and the Church has been raptured. “And I saw
in the right hand of Him
who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with
seven seals” (Revelation 5:1). The seals
represent events that build up to the releasing of the wrath of God. After the
seventh seal is broken the scroll
is opened and the wrath of God is revealed.
God’s wrath begins with the sounding of seven trumpets. After the
“last” of these trumpets sounds,
seven angels are seen with seven bowls of wrath. The seven angels with the bowls
contain the
seven last plagues completing the wrath of God on the earth (see Revelation
15:1). “…a loud voice came out of the
temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, "It is done!" (Revelation
16:17).
The
Bible teaches us that when the last trumpet of God sounds, the rapture will
take place. “Behold, I tell you a
mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed — in a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and
the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1Corinthians
15:51-52).
Most
people believe an angel sounds the “last trumpet.” I have heard
them say, “We are going up in
the rapture when the angel, Gabriel, blows his horn. However, the Bible makes
no mention of
Gabriel sounding any trumpet. They also trust
that the rapture will occur before any of the seven seals on the scroll are
broken (pre-tribulation rapture). Others
mistakenly assumed the “last trumpet” Paul was talking about is the last of the
seven trumpet soundings which begin after the seventh seal is broken. I think
the reasons people make these mistakes
are because they don’t take into account that there are three different types
of trumpet soundings.
WHO BLOWS THE LAST TRUMPET?
Trumpet
signaling can be from God, from man, or from angels. For this discussion I will
call them, the
trumpet [of God], the trumpet [of men] and the trumpet [of angels]. I believe
Zechariah 9:14 is referring to the
rapture when it says, “Then the LORD will be seen over them, And His arrow will
go forth like lightning. The Lord GOD will blow the trumpet…” Therefore,
the “last trumpet” Paul is talking
about that announces the rapture is the trumpet [of God] (see also Matthew
24:31, Psalms 47:5). Scriptural evidence
shows it is Jesus who sounds the “last trumpet,” “For the Lord Himself will
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the
trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ
will rise first” (1Thesolonians 4:16).
The
only biblical account of angels blowing a trumpet is found in scripture after
the seventh seal is broken and God’s wrath is released. Christians are
not meant for God’s wrath;
therefore, we will have been raptured before that takes place (see
1Thesolonians 5:9). We find then, that in
this case, the trumpets [of angels] are meant for the release of God’s wrath.
There are many examples of the Jews sounding
trumpets [of men] for various reasons in the Bible. As this is not germane to
this discussion, I
won’t take time to list them here.
After
the fourth trumpet [of angels] is sounded John says, “And I looked, and I heard
an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice,
"Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining
blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound"
(Revelation 8:13). After the fourth
angel sounds his trumpet, there is a warning about the remaining three trumpets
[of angels]. That would include the
fifth, sixth and the seventh “last” trumpet.
The warning is to the inhabitants of the earth. But there is no warning
for the Church,
because Christians will have already been raptured before the first trumpet [of
angels] is sounded.
THE RAPTURE
There
is ample scriptural evidence that the rapture will occur after the sixth seal
is broken and before the seventh seal is breached. Revelation 6:12 says, “I
looked when He
opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun
became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood.” In
the books of Matthew and Mark (quoted
below) Jesus describes the sun becoming dark and the moon as blood when He
sends His angels to gather together His elect at the rapture:
Immediately after the tribulation of
those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the
stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken… And
He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather
together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matthew
24:29 & 31).
But in those days, after that
tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the
stars of heaven will fall, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then
they will see the Son of Man coming in
the clouds with great power and glory (Mark 13:24-26).
THE TRUMPET OF GOD
I
would like to focus once more on the fact that God sounds a trumpet, i.e. the
trumpet of God. Jesus’ voice can sound
as a trumpet. Revelation 1:10-11a reads,
“I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as
of a trumpet, saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the
Last…" In Psalms 47:5 we find, “God
has gone up with a shout, The LORD with the sound of a trumpet.” In Zechariah
9:14 it says, “…The Lord GOD
will blow the trumpet…” Matthew 24:31
reads, “And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet [of God],
and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of
heaven to the other.” Because of the harmony
of the scriptures listed above, I believe this verse communicates, when Jesus
sounds the last trumpet [of God] it
will alert the Church and signal the angels to gather together His elect; not that the angels blew the trumpet.
The
first time God sounds a trumpet is found in Exodus 19. The blast was so long
and loud it frightened
the people so much they said, “let not God speak with us, lest we die"
(see Exodus 20:18-19). Paul pointed this
out in Hebrews 12:19 when he said, “…the sound of a trumpet and the voice of
words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be
spoken to them anymore.” When Jesus
sounds the “last trumpet” [of God] at the rapture, Christians will rejoice at
His appearance and (gathered by His angels) ascend to be with Him. The great
blast of Jesus’ trumpet will be
heard by everyone on the earth. It will
be long and loud, so much so that the, surprised, un-expecting world left
behind (see 1Thessolonians 5:2), will tremble with fear. Notice, this is not
the description of a
“secret” rapture!
Revelation
6:15-17 gives us the description of the reaction of mankind to the appearance
of Jesus in the sky, when He sounds a long loud blast from His trumpet:
And the kings of the earth, the great
men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free
man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to
the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who
sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His
wrath has come, and
who is able to stand?
The
first time God’s trumpet sounded was to inaugurate the law. When Jesus
sounds the “last trumpet” [of God],
after the sixth seal is broken, it will be to culminate the work of His grace
in the manifestation of the sons of God.
“For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the
revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19).
When the last trumpet [of God] sounds, it will be the fulfillment of our
blessed hope – the rapture we have all been waiting for.
Immediately after the tribulation of
those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the
stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then
the sign of the Son of Man will appear
in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see
the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And
He will send His angels with a great
sound of a trumpet [of God], and they will gather together His elect from the
four winds, from one end of heaven to the other
(Matthew 24:29-31).
The great tribulation of the saints is Satan’s rage, not God’s
wrath. It will be cut short by the
rapture – before the seventh seal (on the scroll) is broken. However,
the full seven year tribulation
period will continue (see Daniel 9:25-27).
After the seventh seal is broken, God’s wrath begins with the sound of
the first trumpet [of angels] and ends with the seven bowls of the Creator’s
wrath.
Daniel’s fiftieth week culminates with the fury of God on those
who refuse to repent of their sins (see Revelation 9:20-21, 16:9 & 11,
20:1-4). Those who have not taken the
mark of the beast and do ask forgiveness for their sins will be allowed to
continue to live on the earth. Those of
us who were raptured, and received our glorified bodies, will reign with Christ
over the mortals, with a rod of iron, for the next thousand years (see
Revelation 19:15 & 20:6).
And
that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker
August 1, 2012
EVEN SO COME QUICKLY LORD JESUS!
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
WISDOM’S
PLATFORM
With
the completion of the GOP convention, and the upcoming DNC meeting, I am
reminded of the document that presents the aims and principles of politicians. This
political document is called a “platform.” The platform is made
up of “planks,” which
represents the party’s various principles.
In
reading through Proverbs this month I was intrigued by chapter 9, verse 1,
“Wisdom has built her house, She has hewn out her seven pillars.” That
scripture caused me to wonder about
wisdom’s seven pillars and what they were.
I discovered, the English word “pillars” is translated from the Hebrew
word “am-mood,’” and that am-mood’ may also be translated into the English
word, platform. As a result, I concluded
that Proverbs 9:1 is telling us, wisdom stands on a “platform” represented by seven
fundamental principles, called “pillars.”
I
began a search to find out what the seven principles of wisdom were. What I
found was very interesting; however, I
am not dogmatic about my list. I have concluded,
thus far, that the seven pillars (principles) of wisdom are: The
fear of the Lord Knowledge
of the Holy One (The Father) The
law Grace
(The Son) Confession
of faith The
Holy Spirit Being
teachable
The first pillar is - The fear of the Lord: From
Proverbs 9:10a, “The fear of the
LORD is the beginning of wisdom…”
To fear the Lord does not mean we are to be afraid of Him, rather it
means to, greatly reverence Him.
However, we must fear, disobeying
Him because we cannot violate God’s word and escape the consequences’.
We must not think we can do what we want and
afterward take advantage of the scripture, “If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (1John 1:9). Doing what we want, while banking on
forgiveness, is a presumptuous sin that will be forgiven when we repent, but it
will also bring consequences of our wrong doing that we will not want to
suffer. We find in Proverbs 16:6b that,
“…by the fear of the LORD one departs from evil.” “Let
us hear the conclusion of the whole
matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man's all” (Ecclesiastes
12:13). The second pillar is – Knowledge of the
Holy One (The Father) and Understanding:
From 1John 4:7-8,
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves
is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for
God is love” and Proverbs 9:10b, “…the knowledge of the Holy One is
understanding.” Proverbs 2:2-6 says:
…incline your ear
to wisdom, And
apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And
lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for
her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the
LORD, And find the knowledge of God. For
the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
We can increase
in the knowledge of the Holy One through loving one another, prayer, and by
studying the Bible; pleasing God and being fruitful in good works and His
service (see Colossians 1:10).
The
third pillar
is – The law: From
Romans 5:20, “…the law entered that the offense [sin] might abound. But where
sin abounded, grace abounded much more,” and Romans 7:7, “What shall we say
then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have
known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness
unless the law had said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET." It is the law that reveals to
us, we are
sinners in need of a Savior.
The
fourth pillar
is – Grace (The Son/Jesus): From
Romans 5:20, “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where
sin abounded, grace abounded much more,” and “Romans 3:24, “being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” In
1Corinthians 1:30 we read, “…Christ Jesus,
…became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and
redemption—.“ We can only be reconciled
to Father God through faith in Jesus.
Jesus said, “I am the [only] door [to the Father and heaven]. If anyone
enters by Me, he will be saved…(John 10:9).
It is Jesus’ grace, through His death and resurrection, which provides
salvation.
The
fifth pillar
is – Confession of faith:
From
Romans 10:9, “…if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in
your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” In
Proverbs 16:6a we find that, “In mercy and
truth Atonement is provided for iniquity…”
Romans 3:28 assures us we are, “justified by faith apart from the deeds
of the law.” Ephesians 2:8-9 emphasizes
the point when it says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works….”
The
sixth pillar is – The Holy Spirit: From John 14:26, “But the Helper,
the
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all
things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” We
should be baptized in the Holy Spirit and
be taught by Him. Then we will have
power to be witnesses of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. “Behold, I
send the Promise of My Father upon
you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on
high" (Luke 24:49). With the Holy
Spirit, we have power to do mighty signs and wonders and fulfill the great
commission (see Romans 15:19 & Mark 16:15).
The seventh pillar is – Being teachable: From, Proverbs 23:12 “Apply your heart
to instruction, And your ears to words of knowledge” and Proverbs 10:8,
“The wise in heart will receive commands.” Proverbs 19:20 instructs
us to, “Listen to
counsel and receive instruction, That you may be wise in your latter days.” Daniel
12:10 says, “…the wise shall
understand.” In Psalms 32:8 we are told,
“I [God] will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide
you with My eye.” One of the things these
scriptures reveal is that we must always be teachable. When someone points out
(or we find) a
scripture that contradicts what we have previously believed, we need to
reconsider our belief; be willing to change our minds and accept what the Bible
says.
We
Need To Be Flexible, While Being
Biblically Correct We
don’t want to become like the Israelites who stiffened their necks and did not
consider the words of the prophets. “Yet
the LORD testified against Israel and against Judah, by all of His prophets…
Nevertheless they would not hear, but stiffened their necks, like the necks of
their fathers, who did not believe in the LORD their God” (2Kings 17:13-14).
If we are not willing to listen to other
opinions; examine and consider other scriptures, we are stiffening our necks,
as Israel did, and show by that that we are not teachable.
We
receive wisdom by asking God, and reading His Word in obedience. “He who
gets wisdom loves his own soul; He
who keeps understanding will find good” Proverbs 19:8). James 1:5 says,
“If any of you lacks wisdom,
let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it
will be given to him.”
Therefore,
when we ask for wisdom, we are asking; to know the fear of the Lord; knowledge
of the Father; knowledge of the law; Jesus and His grace; a confession of
faith; the Holy Spirit; a desire to be teachable. We are asking for the seven
principles of
wisdom. Through this study I have found
that the seven pillars of wisdom, which forms the platform of wisdom, leads us
to saving faith, through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And
that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker
9/1/2012
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
ISAIAH’S PROPHETIC WORD FOR AMERICA No
matter what the rewriters of history try to do to change it, the fact remains
that this nation (the United States of America) was founded on Christian
principles. The same God, who selected a
chosen people (Jews) by freeing them and bringing them out of Egypt, also called
a people (Americans) out of Great Britain to establish a new form of government
under a constitution that recognizes Him as their Creator and giver of rights. Messianic
Rabbi, Jonathan Cahn wrote a book called, The Harbinger. A harbinger is a pronouncement
of
judgment. It is degreed on a nation who
has turned its back on God. Rabbi Cahn
points out that the harbinger, pronounced against Israel in Chapter Nine of Isaiah,
was fulfilled 2,000 years ago. However,
he claims that because the United States has also turned her back on God the
same harbinger applies to this nation today. Could
there be another harbinger meant for the United States in Isaiah, Chapter Five? The
prophet Isaiah says; speaking of Israel as
a vineyard (and the United States): Now let me sing
to my Well-beloved A song of my Beloved regarding His [God’s] vineyard: My
Well-beloved has a vineyard On a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared
out its stones, And
planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, And also made
a winepress in it; So He expected it to bring forth good grapes,
But it brought forth wild grapes (Isaiah 5:1-2). This
prophecy is a description of the Jews (and Americans) being established as a
God worshiping and God serving nation.
God meant for them to continue serving Him; bearing good grapes. However
they turned their backs on Him and
worshiped “Baal” instead; bearing wild grapes.
Isaiah continues his prophesy by listing God’s warning to Israel (and
the United States): Woe
to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and
light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those
who are wise in their own
eyes, And prudent in their own sight!
Woe to men mighty at drinking wine, Woe to men valiant for mixing
intoxicating drink, Who justify the wicked for a bribe, And take away justice
from the righteous man! (Isaiah 5:20-23)
The
following prophesy reveals God’s pronouncements: Therefore, as the
fire devours the stubble, And the flame consumes the chaff, So their root
[Jews and Americans] will be as rottenness, And their blossom will ascend like
dust; Because they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, And despised the
word of the Holy One of Israel.
Therefore the anger of the LORD is aroused against His people; He has
stretched out His hand against them And stricken them, And the hills trembled.
Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this
His anger is not turned away, But His hand is stretched out still
(Isaiah 5:24-25). DUEL PROPHETIC EVENTS I
do not claim to be a prophet. Nevertheless,
some prophetic events in the Bible have duel fulfillments. That is why I believe
the prophetic scriptures
from Isaiah Chapter five, meant for Israel are also meant for the United States. It
is because we have turned our backs on
God; removing mention of Him from public venues; killing babies before they
have a chance to be born; promoting the perversion of marriage and human
sexuality, and turning back from full support of God’s chosen people (the Jews)
just to name a few of our sins. We have
brought forth “wild grapes,” which is resulting in God’s removal of His hedge
of protection from our nation. God’s
response to the Jews’ rejection of Him 2,000 years ago and Americans’ rejection
of Him today is in Isaiah’s prophecy: And now, O
inhabitants of Jerusalem [Washington D.C.] and men of Judah [the United States],
Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard.
What more could have been done to My vineyard That I have not done in
it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, Did
it bring forth wild grapes? And now,
please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away its
hedge, and it shall be burned; And break down its wall, and it shall be
trampled down. I will lay it waste; It
shall not be pruned or dug, But there shall come up briers and thorns. I will
also command the clouds That they rain no rain on it.
(Isaiah 5:3-6) The Chapter five prophesy of Isaiah was
literally fulfilled for the Jews in the year 70 AD. If we don’t change
our ways, it may be
fulfilled for the United States in the near future. THERE IS
HOPE If
we, the Church and nation, will repent, humble ourselves and pray (see
2Chronicles 7:14) we can delay God’s punishment. Just as Nineveh responded
to Jonah’s warning by
fasting and repenting, which resulted in the staying of God’s hand, we too must
respond in like fashion. We have also
sinned in not letting our “salt” and “light” influence our choice of Godly men
and women for governmental positions. Speaking
about us (the Church) Jesus said: You are the salt
of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is
then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You
are the light of the world. A city that is
set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do
they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives
light to all who are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men… (Matthew 5:13-16). Politically
speaking, our “salt” loses its flavor and our “light” is hidden under a bushel
when we don’t vote in an election. However,
when we do, too many times we have voted for people because of their
charismatic personalities rather than considering what they actually do; thus
canceling our “salt” and “light.” We
must come against evil. Our priority
must be to vote against men and women who promote evil, no matter how much they
smile and say differently. Do we not
know that people lie in order to get into office? We must always question a
politician’s words,
and seriously take into account his or her actions. In order to be effective
“light” and “salt” in
the election process, we must pray for our leaders and vote wisely. Billy
Graham, a man I call, “one of God’s generals” recently wrote a letter to
America. In it he stated it better than
I could when he said: Our society
strives to avoid any possibility of offending anyone-except God. Yet the
farther we get from God, the more the world spirals out of control… My
heart aches for America and its deceived
people. The wonderful news is that our
Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. In Jonah's day, Nineveh
was the lone world
superpower-wealthy, unconcerned, and self-centered. When the Prophet Jonah
finally traveled to Nineveh and proclaimed God's warning, people heard and
repented. I believe the same thing can happen once again. I agree whole heartedly with this great
man of God. And that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker October
1, 2012
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
GOD
LOVES US SOOO… MUCH Tim Tebow
is a
quarterback who used to paint the scriptural reference, John 3:16, under his
eyes when he played college football.
When he became an NFL player, league rules would not allow him to do
that any longer. However, God had other
ideas. During the 2011 playoff game
between the Denver Bronco’s (Tim’s team at the time) and the Pittsburg Steelers,
Tebow completed a total of 316 yards in passes.
I have been told he averaged 3.16 yards per pass and the TV viewers
rating was 31.6. The numbers, 316, did
not go unnoticed. On the Monday after
the playoff game, which Denver won, Google recorded millions of searches for
“John 3:16.” Obviously, the search was
not done by Christians, who know that verse.
Tebow’s testimony (albeit assisted by God) communicated to millions of
unbelievers that God loves them so much He gave His only Son to die for their
sins. It is all about God’s great love
for us. God loves us so much He created us
in His own image. Those of us who are fathers or mothers know
of the great burst of love we felt, the first time we saw our first born child. That
doesn’t even begin to approach the level
of the love God feels for us right now.
When we (as man or woman in Adam) first sinned (“for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [Romans 3:23]) it broke His heart because,
it meant our separation from
Him, and death. His Word says,
“For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23a). But because
God loves us so much, He gave His only Son to die for us in order to remove
that sin, which divided us from Him. It
is the greatest gift He could give His sinful children. As Paul says in Romans
6:23b, “…but
the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The
Great Sacrifice of God, the Son Jesus loves us so much
He took our sins upon Himself and died
for us. He said, “As the Father knows Me,
even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” "Therefore
My Father loves Me, because I
lay down My life that I may take it again” (John 10:15 & 17). It was
in the garden of Gethsemane where the
unspeakable happened. That is where the
sinless Jesus, first became sin for us. The
Bible records it this way. “Then they
came to a place which was named Gethsemane; and He [Jesus] said to His
disciples, "Sit here while I pray" (Mark 14:32). “And He was withdrawn
from them about a
stone's throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, "Father, if it is
Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be
done" (Luke 22:41-42). The “cup”
Jesus was talking about was our sin and its punishment. When Jesus said, “…nevertheless
not My will,
but Yours, be done" I surmise that that is when He began drinking the
bitter cup of our sins. “Then an angel appeared to Him from
heaven, strengthening Him. And being in
agony [from the load of our sin and its consequences], He prayed more
earnestly. Then His sweat became like
great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:43-44). Nevertheless,
Jesus continued to drink the
cup of our sin and punishment. After He
was arrested and beaten unmercifully, Jesus took our sins, which were placed on
Him in the garden of Gethsemane, to the cross and died in our place. The apostle
Peter relates, “…who [Jesus]
Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to
sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed” (1Peter
2:24). In doing so He became our propitiation,
which means He made the atonement i.e. paid the price for our sins. When we
accept His sacrifice for us as our
Savior, He makes us “favorably inclined” i.e. righteous, before the Father.
We are reconciled with our Creator. We are “saved.” The apostle John says, “And He Himself is the
propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world”
(1John 2:2).
The
Great Sacrifice of God, the Father God is sovereign and nothing happens in
creation that He either does Himself or allows to be done. Therefore, nothing
is done on the earth
without His permission. Many times God
uses people, even bad ones, to do His bidding.
God used Caiaphas the high priest, to advise the Jews that it was
expedient that one man should die for the people (see John 18:14). He used the
Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar to
punish the Jews for worshiping idols (see Ezra 5:12). Caiaphas and Nebuchadnezzar were the
instruments in God’s hands; but it was God’s work and will. Abraham
took Isaac to Mount Moriah (the exact
place where Jesus would die on the cross many years later) and made him carry
the wood, on which he planned to sacrifice his son. It was Abraham who tied
Isaac’s hands. It was Abraham, who laid him, on the alter,
upon the wood. Had the Angel of the Lord
not stopped him, Abraham would have slashed Isaac’s throat in obedience to
God’s command. The scenario of Abraham offering up
Isaac as a sacrifice, is an example of God the Father offering up Jesus, His
Son, for our sins. Although it was a Roman
soldier who spit on Jesus; because it was God’s will, it was the same as an act
of the Father – pouring out punishment for our sins. Therefore, you could
say; it was the Father
who struck Him on the face and plucked out His beard; it was the Father who
wheeled the whip that slashed open His Son’s body and shed His precious blood; it
was the Father who nailed His Son to the cross; it was the Father who drove the
spear into His side – all for OUR sin. And
yet, He wasn’t doing it to Jesus, He was doing it to sin – for Jesus had become
sin for us and sin’s wages had to be paid. Because
our sin was on Jesus, God the Father had to separate Himself from Him. Jesus
felt that separation! It caused Him to cry out, "MY GOD, MY
GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?" (Mark 15:34). Oh how it must have cut the Father
to His
very heart to punish and forsake His only begotten Son. He did it because He
loves us so much! Jesus’ death paid the price for our
sins because there was no way we could be good enough to earn restoration with
the heavenly Father. No amount of good
works will get us into heaven; it is only our acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice on
the cross. We must, “Repent therefore
and be converted, that …[our] sins may be blotted out…” (Acts 3:19).
And “…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and …
be saved…” (Acts 16:31). That is the
only way Jesus will give us access to Father God and that wonderful place of
peace and happiness called heaven.
Therefore, “how shall we escape [hell] if we neglect so great a
salvation…?” (Hebrews 2:3). That’s why
the apostle Paul said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Our Sacrifice Jesus
gave His all for us; therefore,
we must give our all for Him. We have
been bought with the great sacrificial price of the Father and Son, and no
longer belong to ourselves. Therefore,
when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior we are giving ourselves back to
Him. Chapter six of Romans, points out
that before we were saved we were slaves of sin, but now we are slaves of righteousness.
Therefore, we cannot expect to continue living
as we were before we were saved. To
“repent” and “convert” as it says in Acts 3:19 means to start doing the will of
God. We must feed our spirits with the
Bible and become “doers” of the Word. If
we don’t, we are deceiving ourselves, thinking we have committed our lives to
Jesus when, in fact, we have not. James
says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).
Jesus, “…died for all, that those who live should live no longer for
themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2Corinthians 5:15).
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he
is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have
become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). America, the Prodigal Recently, I have been hearing many
preachers expound on the prodigal son, emphasizing the love of our heavenly
Father. It made me realize the Holy
Spirit was revealing to us that America has become a prodigal. We have rejected
God from public expression
and turned our backs on Him to live a shameful life of sin. Nevertheless, God
wants us to come back to
Him. He is waiting for America to “wake
up” and ask for His forgiveness. He also
wants us to fulfill our responsibility to place godly men and women into public
office so that the nation will continue to serve Him. The Church (believers
in Jesus Christ) has a
great responsibility to get out and vote their biblical values as never before (Billy
Graham recently reminded us of that). We
need to vote for men and women who will lead us back to the biblical values our
forefathers envisioned for America. If
we will do that, our heavenly Father will welcome us back with open arms. “For God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life” (John 3:16). It
was all because He loves the world, including
us and our nation, sooooooo much. And that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker November 1, 2012
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
THE INCARNATION OF GODDuring the month in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus, I would like
to reveal two little known facts about the nativity 1) Jesus’ painless birth
and 2) how His sinless incarnation was possible from a mother who carried the
original sin of Adam.Jesus’
Birth Was Without Labor PainAs a result of the original sin
of Adam and Eve, women suffer labor pain while giving birth.
We learn that in Genesis 3:16, “To the woman He said: “I will
greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth
children….” Children inherit the original sin of Adam, which
gives us a sinful nature in our bodies. Jesus
was sinless and therefore caused no pain for Mary at His birth.
This truth is revealed in Isaiah 66:7, “Before
she [Mary] was in labor, she gave birth; Before her pain came,
She delivered a male child.” However,
Mary did have labor pain when she delivered
her and Joseph’s biological children. There is no question that the virgin, Mary, was the mother of Jesus. However, the assumption has been made that He
was her biological son; but Mary too (like all of mankind born from Adam)
carried the stain of “original sin.”
Therefore, all of Mary’s biological children were born in sin (see Psalm
51:5). First
and Last AdamIt was Father God’s intention that men remain sinless. However, we all know Adam did not obey God’s
command and became guilty of sin, which separated him, and consequently us,
from his Creator. Therefore, because
God
loves us so much He provided a second, and “last Adam” who would remain sinless
and pay the price (the wages of sin is death [Romans 6:23]) that would reconcile
men with God.Paul called Jesus the last Adam
in 1 Corinthians 15:45, “... The last Adam became a
life-giving spirit.” In order
to find
out why Jesus was called the last Adam, we must know some facts about the first
Adam. Adam
means, “First man.” The
first Adam was created, by God without the
benefit of a biological mother or father.
He was also created sinless. To
be called the “last Adam” Jesus would also have to be without a biological
mother or father and be completely sinless.
Just as Adam was created a wholly, sinless, man; Jesus was a wholly
sinless man, while also being wholly God.
You may ask, “How, then, can Jesus be Mary’s baby?” God Incarnate
God became man through the incarnation (embodiment) of Jesus Christ. “Therefore the Lord Himself will give
you a
sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name
Immanuel.”[1] “And behold, you will conceive in your
womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS.”[2] Consequently, God became man through
the
incarnation (embodiment) of Jesus Christ, and was born of the woman Mary.
The Hebrew word that Isaiah
used for conceive was, haw-raw which also can be translated as “become pregnant.” We know that conception takes place in
the
fallopian tube; therefore, it is interesting to note that the angel told Mary
she would conceive “in your womb.” He
also said, “…The Holy Spirit will come upon you, [Mary] and the power
of
the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be
born will be called the Son of God.” [3] When the angel told Mary she would conceive, he used the Greek word sullambano, (sool-lam-ban’-o) which
primarily means to figuratively clasp, i.e. seize. It is also important to note that he said she
would conceive [seize or clasp] in her
womb. Compare
this verse with
Hebrews 11:11: “By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive
seed….” Here, the Greek
word used for
conceive is katabole (kat-ab-ol-ay) a word which clearly means a normal
(although miraculous, because of her age) conception. The natural process is that conception takes
place in a woman’s fallopian tube.
Therefore, I found it strange that the angel told Mary she would
conceive in her womb. Luke, also points out in chapter 2 verse 21,
that: “He [Jesus] was conceived in
the womb.” The evidence supports
the fact that Jesus, in embryo form, was “placed” in Mary’s womb by the Holy
Spirit.Mary Was the Surrogate Mother of ChristA surrogate mother is a person who acts in the place of another person’s
biological mother. In other words,
a
surrogate mother carries another woman’s child in her womb and gives birth to a
baby that is not her own son or daughter.
It was not until the twentieth century that scientists discovered how a
woman could carry to term, and give birth to a child that was not biological
hers. That process is called a
gestational surrogacy. The surrogate
becomes pregnant via embryo transfer with a child of which she is not the
biological mother.Therefore, I believe the Holy
Spirit created the embryo (with no
biological mother or father) that was to become the body of Christ, and placed
it into Mary’s womb where her body clasped, i.e. seized it, so that it would
became attached to her womb for nourishment and growth. Mary was to be the gestational surrogate
mother of Christ. I believe biblical
evidence shows that that is exactly what happened to Mary two thousand years
ago. It has become clear to me that
Mary
was not Jesus’ biological mother; but rather His surrogate mother.And that’s my opinion. Larry ParkerDecember, 2012
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAYPS – I
write about this subject extensively in my new book, Thinking Out of the Box,
In the Bible. If you have questions
about Jesus’ genealogy, how He is the son of David and how Jesus can be Mary’s
seed, I will be glad to send you a copy of the manuscript of the chapter that
answers these questions; just email me and ask.
[2] Luke
1:31, emphasis added
THE
TRINITY
GOD’S IMAGE
Genesis
1:27 points out, “So God
created man [the species, mankind] in His own image; in the image of God
He created him; male and female He created them.”[1] We see by this scripture that man, (male and
female), was made in the image of God.
When a man and woman are joined together in marriage they become one
flesh.[2] When a child is born to them they all become
one family – in the image of God. The
family unit is, father, mother, child.
We (a male and female family unit) are made in the image of God. In the
previous verse (26) God said, “…Let Us
make man… according to Our likeness…” If we are made in God’s image, according to
His likeness, then it is only logical to conclude that God (Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit) is Male and Female.
Therefore, could you not look at the Godhead as composed of Father,
Mother and Son?
One of the names
of God is Shadday, more commonly known as, El-Shaddai, the Almighty. El Shaddai is composed of
the Hebrew relative pronoun she. The title Shaddai is
connected with the
word breast and signifies one who nourishes, supplies, satisfies. Geneses 49:25
says, “…the Almighty who will
bless you with blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that
lies beneath, Blessings of the breasts and of the womb.”
In the Old Testament the Hebrew
word,
which is translated into the English word, ‘God’ is elohiym (pronounced, el-o-heem).
Elohiym is a plural word,
because God is the triune being we call, the Trinity. Matthew 28:19 says, “…Father,…Son,…Holy
Spirit,” That is why God said, “Let Us make man in Our image,
according to Our likeness…”[3]
THE
TRINITY In John
17:22 Jesus said, “…We [Father and
Jesus] are one.” Although He does not
mention the Holy Spirit in this verse, the Holy Spirit is included in their “oneness.”
We find that in 1 John 5:7, “For there are three that bear witness in
heaven: the Father, the Word [Jesus], and the Holy Spirit; and these three are
one.” Therefore,
God, as a triune being, is
represented as, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Son is a prophet[4]
who speaks and is, God’s Word.[5] The Greek words for Holy Spirit are hagios and pneuma, meaning Holy Breath
[of God]. Jesus said, “…He (gender
inferred by translators) [Holy Spirit]
will teach you all things…”[6] Therefore, I have concluded that the Holy
Spirit is the breath of God breathing life (Jesus) into the heart of a
believer, and teaching, him or her, the ways of the Lord. All three personalities of the Godhead
(Father, Son and Holy Spirit) are One.
Therefore, each personality is masculine and feminine. However,
each personality also has a central characteristic. Obviously, the Father and
the Son are
characteristically masculine. Hence, I
suggest the Holy Spirit may be the feminine characteristic expression of the
Godhead. In other words, I would like to
suggest that if the primary masculine personality of God is manifested in the
Father and the Son, then the Mother feminine personality of God is manifested
in the Holy Spirit. In a manner of
speaking, the Holy Spirit is the Mother
of Jesus. It was the Holy Spirit who
came upon Mary and overshadowed her,[7]
placing the fetus of what became the body of Jesus, into her womb, making Mary
– the surrogate mother of our Savior.
A
TYPE OF THE TRINITY God
uses Moses, Aaron and Miriam as a
“type” of the Trinity. In Exodus 7:1
the Lord said, “…See, I have made you [Moses] as God to Pharaoh, and
Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.”
In this verse God was making Moses and Aaron a “type” of two members of
the trinity; Moses as a type of Father God, and Aaron as a type of Jesus, who
speaks the words of Moses; but what about the Holy Spirit? I believe the Lord
completes the trinity
“type” in Micah 6:4 when He says, “… I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.”
In Exodus 15:21 we find Miriam as a prophetess, teaching the Jews the mighty works of God; a “type” of
Holy
Spirit. Moses and Aaron represent the
male personalities of the Father and Son, and Miriam, represents the female
personality of the Holy Spirit. Therefore,
a “type” of the trinity is
represented by two males and one female.
“…God created man in His own image; in the image of God He
created him; male and female He created them.”[8] And that’s
my opinion. Larry
Parker January 1, 2013
READ
THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
[3]
Genesis 1:26, emphasis added
[4]
See Matthew 13:57 and Luke 24:19
THE
PRIDE OF LIFE
The second temptation
of Christ found in Matthew
4:5-6 gives us a basis for a definition of presumption, which is the pride of
life, i.e., a confidence in one’s self:
Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set
Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God,
throw Yourself down. For it is written:
‘He shall give His angels charge concerning you.’ and ‘In their hands they
shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
I have gleaned from this
scripture the following
definition:
The pride of life is a confidence in one’s self that you can prove
to others;
you are a child of God who can claim your right, by scripture, to do what you
want and influence God to do your
bidding.
In verse seven, Jesus
calls that, “tempting
God.” It is a faith in one’s self rather
than a faith in God. It is the process
of (on your own initiative) taking the general word of God and making it specific for you. The idea that we can find a scripture,
which says we can have what
we want and quote it back to God, because He must do what we ask, is
presumptuous.
The
Bible is God’s general word (logos) to all of us. It is the Holy Spirit,
who makes the logos
word a specific word (rhema) to us. When
the Holy Spirit makes God’s logos a rhema to us, we can quote that “rhema” back
to God and He will perform it because He said He would. It is the Holy Spirit
who makes a general
word from the Bible specifically (rhema) for us. That is the only time we may
quote it back to
God and expect Him to accomplish what He said He would do.
Whenever leaders teach
on the subject of faith, it
is important that they explain how it differs from presumption, the pride of
life. When we act presumptuously we are,
in fact, testing God.
Tempting (testing) God
was the sin I was guilty
of. Sometime before the fateful events
that took my son’s life, I can remember thinking: “God would have to heal Wesley if only I had the
courage to stop his medicine.” When Wesley
was prayed for, the evangelist said he was healed. Wesley told me he believed
what the minister
said; that he was healed. Satan used my
son’s response to whisper in my ear:
Don’t take his faith from him. If you are a child of God and
believe that He
loves you, you have a right for your son to be healed. Show your
faith by stopping his insulin. For it is
written: “...by whose [Jesus’] stripes you were
healed.”[1]
I didn't know I was
listening to Satan or that the word ‘were’ was not in the Greek text. I
thought the time had come to strengthen myself with courage and to speak – what
I though was a ‘word of faith.’ I wanted
to believe my son was healed so badly, I didn’t wait for God to give me a faith
that knows without doubt. Unwittingly, on
my own initiative I claimed, “Wesley is healed.” The price of that
presumption was my son’s
death. Me, my family and many of our
relatives and friends, all had to suffer the consequences of my presumptuous
act.
People who encourage others
to claim healing, wealth
or possessions, without waiting for God to give them real faith are unknowingly
persuading followers to commit the sin of presumption. Sadly, they don’t
even realize how close they
are coming to the teachings of those who believe we can commit sin, repent, and
not worry about it. Such people say that
all we have to do is ask God to forgive us.
They don’t mention that even though we may be forgiven, we will still have
to suffer the consequences of our actions.
I was wrong in thinking
I was acting in faith; wrong
in thinking that taking medicine was faithlessness; wrong in not waiting for
God’s timing and His gift of a, knowing without doubt, faith, i.e., a specific
word (rhema) from Him. As one who lives
on the Mojave Desert, Psalm 106:13b-14 describes my sin perfectly. Let me paraphrase
it as it applies to
me. “I did not wait for God’s counsel,
but passionately yearned exceedingly in the wilderness (for healing), and
tested God in the desert.”
Some teachers today still
tell believers, “If you
have enough faith, you will not need medicine.”
They themselves don’t understand what faith is, especially when they
say, “If you don’t get healed, it is your fault because you don’t have the
faith.” They embolden believers to
presumptuously tempt the Lord God; to, on their own, make God’s logos (word) a
rhema (word). They encourage us to tempt
Him by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”[2]
False teachers also teach
us to lust excessively for
prosperity rather than wait for the counsel of the Lord. No matter where they
live, Psalm 106:13b-14
fits them as well: “...They did not wait for His counsel, But lusted
exceedingly... And tested God....” Sadly,
they continue to teach and commit presumption.
Thank God, He forgives
the sin of presumption
through the blood of Jesus Christ. Many
years ago I asked, and received forgiveness for my sin. Since then, I enjoy
a renewed fellowship with
Christ as my Savior and healer.
Nevertheless, come this August, I will have suffered the absence of my
first born son every day for the past four decades. I will continue to do so
until the day I die. I have learned the hard way; we must always
wait on the Lord and not act presumptuously. That sin, is the pride of life.
And
that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker
February 1, 2013
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND WISDOM The apostle John tells us that; “All things were
made through Him, [Jesus] and without Him nothing was made that was made.”[1] Being One with Jesus, the Father and the Holy
Spirit were with Him when all things were made.
While reading
the Bible, I found it interesting to
note that wisdom was with Jesus when He made everything. We read that in Proverbs
8:27-30:
When
He [Jesus] prepared the heavens, I [wisdom]was there, When He drew a
circle on the face of the deep, When He established the clouds above, When He
strengthened the fountains of the deep, When He assigned to the sea its limit,
So that the waters would not transgress His command, When He marked out the
foundations of the earth, Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;
And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, I was also intrigued by the
personification of wisdom in Proverbs 9:1-3 as feminine in gender. Jesus supports
this feminine personification
when He says, “…wisdom [Mother?] is justified by her children.”[2] I wondered, “Who is this feminine person, wisdom,
which was with Jesus?” I know God is a
triune being, i.e. – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; not Father, Son, Holy Spirit
and Wisdom, so I dared to think,
“Could she be the Holy Spirit?”
Genesis 1:27 says,
“So God created man in His own
image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
This
scripture is informing us the fact that the one God, (Father, Son and Holy
Spirit) is/are male and female. I know
it is difficult for our minds to get around this fact, nevertheless it is true.
Isaiah prophesies
that, “As one whom his mother
comforts, So I will comfort you; And you shall be comforted..."[3] Here, Isaiah associates the Lord (Holy
Spirit?) like one who comforts as a mother.
Jesus (the second person of the Trinity) calls those of us who do the
will of the Father, His brothers. “For
whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother…”[4] It is interesting to note that in Proverbs
7:4 we are told to, “Say to wisdom, "You are my sister…”[5] (Could we also say She is my Mother?).
If God, the Father is our heavenly Father and
God, the Son is our heavenly Brother; wouldn’t it be logical to think that God,
the Holy Spirit [wisdom] is our heavenly mother/sister? I’m not sure which
on that point.
Jesus told the
disciples (as translated
by the King James Version), “But the
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name,
he (gender inferred by translators) shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”[6] A teacher is one who instructs. Proverbs
4:13 declares, “Take firm hold of
instruction, do not let go; Keep her,
for she is your life.”[7] This scripture refers to the instructor (Holy
Spirit?) in the feminine gender. Speaking of the
Holy Spirit, Jesus said
in John 16:8, “And when He [Holy Spirit] (gender inferred by translators) has come, He will convict the world of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”
We see, then, that the Holy Spirit draws us to Jesus through the
conviction of sin. When we repent and
invite Him into our hearts to be Lord of our lives, Jesus reconciles us to the
Father through His death and resurrection.
In Proverbs 8:35, salvation is revealed in the
Trinity when the author says, “For whoever finds me [wisdom/Holy Spirit] finds
life [Jesus], And obtains favor from the LORD [heavenly Father];” Continuing in
verse 36 he says, “But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul; All those
who hate me love death." I find
this interesting in that it sounds much the same as what Jesus said in Matthew
12:32, “…whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him,
either in this age or in the age to come.”
As a result of
studying these scriptures I would like
to suggest that personified wisdom is, in fact, the Holy Spirit (Comforter),
the third person of the Trinity. This
idea is enforced when we read the words of Wisdom talking in Proverbs 1:23,
“Turn at my rebuke; Surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my
words known to you.” Here, Wisdom is
saying she is a spirit and instructor.
Is this not a description of the Holy Spirit? And that’s my opinion. Larry Parker March 1, 2013
READ
THE BIBLE EVERY DAY THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER / SOILS
Jesus said, in Mark 16:15 “…"Go into
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” We call that,
The Great Commission. Therefore, it is important we seek the Holy Spirit to
find out what work we are charged to do in obedience to Jesus’ command.
In fulfilling His directive, some of us are called
to sow, i.e. plant the gospel (That does not necessarily mean preaching). It
could simply be a testimony to those around you of how God has changed your life when you invited Him into your heart. Others are meant to water or nurture the believer, i.e., teach God’s Word. The apostle Paul was known for doing both.
We see in 1Corintians 3:6, on that occasion, Paul was the planter and Apollos was one who watered.
The
Parable of the Soils, (more frequently called The parable of the sower) was Jesus’ way of training the disciples how
to propagate His Word. Its explanation by Jesus is found in Matthew 13:4-23. Jesus relates how a sower of seed sowed on four types of soil. The point is made that there is a place we are not to sow (the wayside) as well as what kind of response
we will get on three other types of soil (stony, thorny, and good). We do not
know the hearts of men, so we cannot be the judge as to what type of ground they may represent. Thus, it is critical that we wait and listen to the Holy Spirit’s analysis of the soil we want to
sow on. This could take a few days or just seconds.
The Wayside Sowing seed on the wayside (see Matthew 13:4 &
19) is a waste of time. People there, are not ready to receive the gospel. They may hear it, but will not understand it.
Also, Satan is there to snatch it away. Paul and Timothy were forbidden
by the Holy Spirit from going to Asia because the Asians were not yet ready for the gospel.
If they had gone, the evangelists would have been sowing the seeds of the Word of God by the “wayside”
(see Acts 16:6). There is nothing we can do to prepare these people for the
gospel. Only God can move them to suitable ground. When He does, then the Holy Spirit will guide us to plant the gospel.
Eventually, God did prepare the way, and the gospel was taken into Asia. Stony Places Stony places are not good for sowing seed (see Matthew
13:5 & 21). There is not much ground or depth of earth to support the one
who may receive the word with joy. When tribulation or persecution comes, as
it surely will, (see 2Timonthy 3:12) the new believer will stumble and fall away. Therefore,
the stones must be removed first.
Thorny Places If we sow seeds among thorns (see Matthew 13:7 & 22), the thorns
will spring up and choke out the new plants. The person in this place hears
the word but the cares of the world and the thorns (deceitfulness of riches) choke it from him or her and they are fruitless. I can’t help but think that churches, which preach about claiming riches for
the believer, are full of thorns. As with the stony places, the thorns, i.e.,
the deceitfulness of riches, must be removed before the gospel can be preached effectively.
Good Ground Good ground is where we should always plant the word of God (see Matthew
13:8 & 23). The individual there has been prepared by the Holy Spirit to
receive Jesus. He or she will hear the Word and understand how Jesus’
sacrifice on the cross was for their salvation. They will grow in God’s
grace and bare much fruit, producing from thirty to a hundredfold. On a personal
note, I became “good ground” when I was a teenager, having gone to church for ten years. All it took, then, was a friend to ask me, “Would you like to ask Jesus into your heart.” Preparing the Ground Another lesson we can learn from this parable is the need for preparing the soil. When the Holy Spirit identifies the type of ground we are on, i.e., the people we
want to witness to, we will know how to respond. If it is the wayside, we should
avoid it. We can do nothing about it; only God can change this type of ground. We should not plant in ground that has not been prepared. That is what Jesus meant when He said, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls
before swine…” (Matthew 7:6). It may even drive the unbeliever farther
away from a decision to repent.
If it is a stony place, we should begin by clearing out the stones and plowing the ground in
preparation for planting seed. The stones could represent obstacles in a person’s
life that would hinder them from growing in the Lord; things such as sickness and poverty, which would inhibit their reception
of the knowledge of Jesus’ love for them. Plowing could be represented
by praying for their illness and helping them out in some materialistic way. Only
when they are ready (have become “good ground”) to receive the news that they are sinners in need of a Savior
do we plant the seed of God’s Word.
A
thorny place is much harder to deal with. It is very difficult to get rid of
thorns there. However, it is important that we clear out the thorns, before
we can plant in that field. That means being friendly with the person and somehow
showing them how riches will not bring them happiness. Allowing the joy of the
Lord to be seen in our lives, in spite of difficulties we may have, can be a way of doing that. Again, we must wait on the Holy Spirit to let us know if that person is ready to receive the good news
of Jesus Christ as Savior. We must always let the Holy Spirit guide us in sharing
our faith; but share it we must. And that’s my
opinion.
Larry ParkerApril 1, 2013READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
We Must First Become
As Little Children In order to enter heaven we must repent and accept Jesus as our Savior and allow His Lordship
over our lives. Nevertheless, in Matthew 18:3, Jesus said: "Assuredly,
I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. And in Luke 18:17 He says, “
Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it." Therefore, according to Jesus, we must also, “become as little children.” What did He mean by that? What childlike characteristic
does Jesus require us to emulate? The primary distinction that every
child displays (up to an un-definable age) is that they believe, and accept as true, everything his or her parents tell them.
Just so, Jesus wants us to believe, and do, everything He says. Jesus is the Word (the Bible) and expects us to believe what is written there, by our heavenly Father
through the Holy Spirit; just as a child believes what their parents tell them. Therefore,
when we read the Bible we are to accept everything the Holy Spirit says as true. The Holy Spirit (using godly men) did not write the Bible with
a need for theologians to explain it to the average person. While there are
mysteries there that need close scrutiny, the Bible was written plainly so the average, Spirit born, reader could understand
its plain text. When the Bible uses metaphors or allegories, it is clear by
the context. Such is the case with Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a statue
which represented kingdoms of this world (Daniel, 3). The “beasts”
in Daniel, chapter seven, as well as the “beast” in Revelation, thirteen are clearly not literal beasts, but metaphors
for kingdoms and their leaders. When Jesus used parables, it is understood by
the hearer; such is the case of the parables about the vinedresser and the builders who rejected the cornerstone (see Luke
20:9-19). Jesus went on to explain ambiguous parables to His disciples (see
Matthew 13:3-23). Plain Words Mean What They Say As we study the Bible we are to believe what the plain words say. When
the Bible describes God’s creation in Genesis 1:1-27, it articulates that He created the heavens and the earth in six
days (resting on the seventh). The fact that He said each day was “the
evening and the morning” lets us know He meant 12 hours for a day, and by insinuation,
12 hours for night; a twenty-four hour day. We are not required to understand
scientifically how He did it; just, like a child, we are to believe it. It would be incorrect to think each
day of creation was an indefinite amount of time in an attempt to match the Bible with science. Science has been wrong in the past. In time, as men study
it, our understanding of science changes. The Bible never changes. When we get science right, it will always agree with the Bible.
The day will come when science will be able to explain how seven days
of creation can look like it took place billions of years ago. Therefore, we
must never use science to change what the Bible teaches. Church Doctrine Church guidelines
change as well. That is why we have so many different denominations. There are different opinions on when the rapture will occur, how one is saved, how one is baptized, how
one receives the Holy Spirit, how one receives healing, or even if healing is for today – to name a few. However, what we believe about any of these things must be based on what the plain text of the Bible says;
a doctrine that never changes, rather than on what is taught by a denomination which may use assumptions and traditions of
men to reach their conclusions. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2Timothy 3:16). When
people claim a particular part of the Bible was not meant for you, remind them of the scripture just quoted. Remember, in Genesis 3:1 the first temptation from the devil was his questioning of God’s Word to
Eve, “Has God indeed said…?” People of today have rephrased
that question to ask, “Did God really mean to say that to you?” We Are In The “End Times” The headlines of today reveal we are
plunging headlong toward the end of the age. As Christian overcomers we must
be prepared. The apostle Paul warns us not to be deceived. The following is an important scripture about the rapture of the saints.
As a little child, we must believe just what it says: Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him [the rapture], we ask you…”
“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the
man of sin [Antichrist] is revealed, the son of perdition,…” (2Thessalonians 2:1&3)
These
verses clearly say the rapture will not happen until after there is a falling away from Christianity and the Antichrist has
been revealed. I believe any teaching that claims the rapture will occur before
the Antichrist is revealed is clearly contrary to this scripture, and therefore, in error.
In Matthew 24, Jesus agrees with Paul when He says we will see the abomination of desolation, because when we see the
abomination of desolation committed by an individual, we will know that that individual is the Antichrist. We must draw closer
to God and learn how to trust in Him for everything; especially in these last days.
The increasing persecution of Christians will cause many who are not fully committed to Christ to “fall away.” In Matthew 24:42 Jesus said we must “watch.” Prior to that statement Jesus tells us when the rapture will occur and what we are to watch for. We have already seen nations rising up against nations, famines, pestilences, and
earthquakes. We are also to watch for: Many will come in Jesus’ name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many
(Matt.24:5, Mark 13:6, Luke 21:8). Christians will be delivered up to tribulation and killed, and hated by all nations for
Jesus’ name's sake (Matt. 24:9, John 16:33). False prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even
the elect (Matt. 24:11 & 24, Mark 13:22). We will see the 'ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing
in the holy place (Matt 24:15, Mark 13:14). The gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the
entire world as a witness to all the nations (Matt. 24:14). There will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall
be (Matt 24:21, Rev. 7:14). The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from
heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken (Isaiah 13:10,24:23, Ezekiel 8:12, 32:7 & 8, Matt. 24:29, Mark 13:24).
The rapture does
not occur first and then, seven years later, the second coming. They are not
two separate events, but rather one. It is only after we experience the Great
Tribulation and see the sun darkened that the rapture, which is Christ’s second coming, will occur. The rapture is the second coming, which will not be a hidden event but will be in view of the whole world. Jesus makes that plain in Matthew 24:30-31: Then the sign of the Son of
Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the
clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He [Jesus] will send His angels
with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather [rapture] together His elect [the Church] from the four winds, from
one end of heaven to the other (emphasis added).
The
apostle Paul distinguishes Israel [the Jews] from the elect [the Saints] in Romans 11:7 when he says, “…Israel
has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded.” However, Jews who accept Jesus as Savior do become members of the elect, body of Christ, which is the
Church. These are the ones who will go up in the rapture. As little children let us believe what
Jesus is telling us about the rapture in Matthew 24. Now that we know what to
watch for, let us always be ready and watching. And that’s
my opinion. Larry Parker May 1, 2013 READ THE BIBLE EVERY
DAY
[2]
Matthew 11:19, emphasis added
[4]
Matthew 12: 50, emphasis added
[7]
Emphasis added to “her” and “she”
The
Tribulation Period Daniel’s 70th Week has been
traditionally called “The Tribulation Period,” or “The Seven Years Tribulation
Period.” This misnomer has caused many
to be confused in interpreting events that will happen during this critical
time in the lives of believers; especially the timing of the rapture. That is
because; tribulation and the wrath of
God are two different things! The great
tribulation i.e., great persecution (see Mark 4:17), starts when the Antichrist,
stands in the new Jewish temple, and declares he is god. Satan’s persecution
of the saints (see Rev.
13:7) is cut short by the rapture, after
which the wrath of God is released on those left behind. To learn about Daniel’s 70th Week we
must, of course, start in the book of Daniel.
When the prophet was praying about Israel, the angel Gabriel told him: Seventy
weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the
transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To
bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to
anoint the Most Holy (Daniel 9:24). (theologians
agree that this time period is in terms of ‘weeks of years’ totaling 490 years.)
After Jesus’ death on
the cross, and the
destruction of Jerusalem, 483 of the 490 years (69 weeks) were finished. One
week (Daniel’s 70th Week) is
yet to be completed. It has inappropriately
been called, the Tribulation Period. The
final seven years clock of Daniel’s Week will begin when the Antichrist confirms
a peace treaty with Israel.[1]
The
Scroll of Wrath As
related in the book of Revelation, John saw a
scroll, which was a parchment describing the wrath of God. The scroll’s
contents were secured with seven
seals that only Jesus was worthy to release.[2]
Before the parchment can be opened and
God’s wrath released, the seals must be broken.
Romans 5:9 & 1Thessalonians
5:9 assure us that
the Church is not appointed to wrath. Because
of that, God’s elect will be raptured before the seventh seal is broken. With
the breaking of the seventh seal, the scroll
will be opened releasing Jehovah’s fury allotted to those who defy Him during
Daniel’s 70th Week.
Revelation 6:1-12 reveals the
breaking of the seals. When Jesus breaks the first seal, a white
horse appears. The man on the white
horse is the Antichrist, imitating Jesus and going out “conquering and to
conquer.” He begins with a peace treaty
with Israel. When he breaks that treaty
3 ½ years later the great tribulation starts.
The breaking of the second seal
brings out a red
horse. The rider of this horse was given
a great sword to take peace from the earth and cause the people to kill one
another.
The third seal brings a black
horse, and he who sat
on it had power to cause famine on the earth causing food to be exceptionally
expensive.
The fourth seal brings a pale
(green) horse whose
rider had power over one fourth of the earth to kill with hunger, death, and
beasts of the earth.
The fifth seal reveals the souls
of those who had
been slain for the word of God and for their testimony. They are temporally
held under the altar of
God in heaven.
The
Rapture When
Jesus breaks the sixth seal the saints are
still on the earth suffering under the great tribulation. They have been present
during all of the
events, which happened with the breaking of the previous five seals. The suffering
of the Church, in the great
tribulation, will produce a bride without spot or wrinkle, ready to meet her
Groom (Ephesians 5:27). Because she is not
meant to suffer God’s wrath, the Church will be gathered together with Him, in
the air, (the rapture) before the seventh seal is broken. Read it in Jesus’
own words:
And
unless those days [great tribulation] were shortened, no flesh would be saved;
but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened (Matthew 24:22).
Immediately
after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will
not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of
the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will
mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with
power and great glory. And He will
send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together
His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other [the
rapture] (Matthew 24:29-31, underline added).
The
reason it is inappropriate to call Daniel’s
Week the tribulation period is because only part of that time is called the (great)
tribulation. Jesus Himself says so in
Matthew 24:21. My study of scripture
reveals Daniel’s 70th Week as divided into three sections, or
elements: The first 3 ½
years is initiated by a peace treaty
confirmed by the Antichrist who allows the Jews to build their third Temple on
mount Moriah. He uses this time to
consolidate his power over a new world order.
This first section of Daniel’s Week ends with the abomination of
desolation (desecration of the new Jewish Temple) committed by the
Antichrist. This is followed by the persecution
of the Jews and Saints of God, which is orchestrated by the “man of sin.”[6] Jesus calls this time, the great tribulation
and cuts it short by the rapture of His Church.[7]
The third part of Daniel’s Week is the remainder
of the second 3 ½ year period, which incorporates the wrath of God.
Most
people who call Daniel’s 70th Week, The Tribulation Period, believe the whole
seven years incorporates God’s wrath.
They have set themselves up for error.
When they read Romans 5:9 & 1 Thessalonians 5:9 they conclude the Church
must be caught up before then and therefore believe in a pre-tribulation
rapture. The problem with this teaching
is that, not only is it wrong, it does not alert the believer to the times of
great trouble just ahead. They will not
see the critical need to get close to Jesus and learn how to trust Him during
the great tribulation.
Scriptures such as Isaiah 13:10,
Matthew 24:29,
Mark 13:24, Acts 2:2 and Revelation 6:22 give confirming prophesies about how
the sun and the moon will be darkened just before Jesus appears above the earth;
before the seventh seal is breached and the saints go to meet Him in the
air. The following scriptures prove the
rapture will occur after the sixth seal is broken, and just before the seventh
seal:
I
looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake;
and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood (Revelation
6:12).
Then
the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of
the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of
heaven with power and great glory. Immediately
after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will
not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens will be shaken. And He will send
His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His
elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matthew 24:29-31).
It is time we stopped accepting
traditional
teaching on the rapture, or anything else, just because our denomination or
someone else says it is true. Rather, we
must search the scriptures, for ourselves, and believe what the Holy Spirit
says about these subjects. We are to
believe what religious leaders say, only when it is supported by God’s
Word. In these last tumultuous days, it
could be very dangerous to our lives and even our souls if we don’t. And
that’s my opinion. Larry Parker June 1, 2013
READ
THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
PEOPLE, WHO NEVER HEAR ABOUT JESUS
Do people who never hear about Jesus go to
hell? Let there be no doubt, there is no
way to heaven except through the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus said…, “I
am the door. If anyone enters [heaven]
by Me, he will be saved…” (John 10:9), and "I
am the way,
the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father [goes to heaven]
except through Me (John 14:6, emphasis added).”
Jesus is the only way to heaven!
Everyone must go through
heaven’s ‘door’ (Jesus Christ) in order to get to paradise. However,
there is a verse in the Bible that
gives us pause. It says, “…it is appointed for men to die once,
but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
While reading that verse it would seem if a person died and faced the
judgment without knowing Jesus, he or she would have to go to hell. But would God be righteous and just
if He allowed anyone to go to hell because they never heard about, and had a
chance to accept, Jesus?”
What
Must We Do To Be Saved?
Simply put, salvation
requires two things:
A
person’s acceptance of the knowledge of God and A
person’s acceptance of the sacrificial death of His Son Jesus (for our sins). The
Bible says that by
simply observing the world and universe around him, man knows there is a God
and is therefore, without excuse. “For since the creation of the world
His [God’s] invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by
the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that
they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). Jesus
is God, so when we reject
the Creator God, whom we know exists,
we are also rejecting Jesus. When we
acknowledge and accept God we must also acknowledge and accept His Son Jesus—in
order to be able to go through the ‘door’ to enter heaven. How can
we do that if we never hear about
Him? This brings us to the subject of
this article. What happens if we die
having never heard about Jesus? To clear
up this conundrum we must be alerted to a hypothesis we have been making. The Dead Are Reserved
for Judgment We
have been assuming that the
Hebrews 9:27 verse means judgment is immediately
after death. Because of that, we conclude
anyone who dies without learning about Jesus (and therefore, not accepting Him)
must go to hell. There are no scriptures
to confirm that assumption; but the Bible does
talk about the dead—both the unjust and the saints, being reserved for judgment.
…the Lord knows how to… reserve the unjust under punishment
for the day of judgment,—2Peter 2:9, emphasis
and underline added.
…the time of the
dead, [has come] that
they should be judged, And that You should reward Your servants the prophets
and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great…—Revelation 11:18, brackets and
underline added.
The writer of Hebrews 9:27 tell us that
man has two appointments; one with death and one with judgment. He does not
say judgment is immediately
after death. As we have learned from the
verses mentioned above, the dead are judged after
they have been resurrected. The dead,
subsequently, are reserved for a day
of judgment. The unjust are reserved
under punishment, and the just are reserved in paradise. Today, people of the
world die in one of four
conditions.
They heard the gospel and accepted
Jesus. They heard the gospel and rejected
Jesus. They did not hear the
gospel, but would accept Jesus, if they did. They did not hear the gospel,
but would reject Jesus, if they did. What Happens When You Die?
The ones who accept Jesus
as Savior and Lord go to be with Jesus.
Jesus told the thief, on the cross, “Assuredly,
I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise" (Luke
23:43). Speaking to Christians, the
apostle Paul assures us, “We
are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body (being dead)
and to be present with the Lord” (2Cornithians 5:8). However, those who
reject Jesus are sent to
hades (place of departed souls) waiting to be judged (Luke 16:23).
Now we get to the ones who have never heard the
gospel. In Luke 16:15 Jesus says, “God
knows your hearts.” Therefore, because
God knows the heart of a person who has died, and that he or she will reject
Jesus; that person is sent to hades to await judgment. He also knows the person
who would accept
Jesus if they were offered the chance. So
how does that person accept Jesus after they have died if they have never heard
of Him? The answer, confirmed by the
Bible, is explained in Dr. Mary’s after death story.
Dr.
Mary’s Story
In 1999 Dr. Mary C. Neal drowned in a
kayak accident. She went to heaven where
she was told her work on earth was not done and she must return. She writes
of her experience in the book To
Heaven and Back. In it Dr. Neal writes:
We [spiritual beings and I] were
traveling down a path that led to a great and brilliant hall, larger and more
beautiful than anything I can conceive of seeing on earth. …I felt my
soul being pulled toward the entry
and, as I approached, I physically absorbed its radiance and felt the pure,
complete, and utterly unconditional absolute love that emanated from the
hall. It was the most beautiful and alluring
thing I had ever seen or experienced. I
knew with a profound certainty that it represented the last branch point of
life, the gate through which each human being must pass. It was clear that this
hall is the place
where each of us is given the opportunity to review our lives and our choices,
and where we are each given a final
opportunity to choose God or to turn away...—To Heaven And Back by Mary C.
Neal, MD, Water Brook Press, 2011, 2012 – Page 73, emphasis and underline mine.
Notice that in Dr. Neal’s after-death
experience, she was headed toward a room where everyone is given an opportunity
to accept Jesus, i.e. go through the “gate/door.” The brilliant
hall seems to be a place where the gospel is preached to those who have never
heard about Jesus. While that sounds
good, we must not give credence to her story unless it can be backed up with
scripture.
Support for her experience is found in
1 Peter 4:5-6.
They will give an account
to Him who is ready to judge the living and
the dead. For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who
are dead, that they might be judged
according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit—emphasis
and underline added.
The original Greek could also read, “gospel
is
preached.” It would seem the translators
recognized this fact when they continued the verse with the phrase “those who are
dead. Many Christians are taught and
believe these verses apply only to
those who died before Christ’s redemptive work on the cross. I hope you
will recognize this religious
doctrine is an assumption. I would like
to point out that Peter penned these words after Jesus had ascended to
the right hand of the Father, after His death and resurrection. To me, Peter
is telling us that the
people, who die before they hear the gospel, will hear it and be judged
the same as people “in the flesh” who die after hearing the good news of
Jesus Christ.
We must not base our doctrine on RC
(religiously correct), tradition, or even on one scripture, unless it agrees
with the sum total of God’s Word.
The entire Word of God is full of His love for us. Therefore, it is not
in His nature to allow
anyone to go to hell without a chance to accept His offer of salvation.
I believe, even people who have been
raised in a false religious environment, where they are taught Jesus is not God
and die having never been told the truth of the Gospel, will have it presented
to them. As mentioned above, 1 Peter 4:5-6
assures us that they will be given an informed opportunity, as to who Jesus is,
and the chance to accept Him after death.
People who never hear the gospel before
they die will have the same chance that those have, who hear the gospel before
they die. There are none in hell who have
not chosen to go there by their informed rejection of Jesus Christ. For God
so loved the world (all men and all
woman) that He gave us His Son Jesus… (John 3:16). Thank God! He loves us enough to give all mandkind a chance to accept
His son, no matter where or when we
live, and no matter where or when we die.
Praise his merciful name!
And
that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker
July 1, 2013
READ
THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
JESUS
IS NEITHER CAUCASIAN NOR BLACK
I
have been saddened recently by the attempts of certain antagonists to stir up
conflict between races. Growing up in
the forties and fifties I know a little about how bad prejudice was then, and
how much we have developed. These
activists are trying to say we have not improved and are the same as we were
then. While we are not “there” yet, I
can’t understand why they won’t acknowledge the improvements we have made.
After all, the majority of the people of this
country did elect a black
president. That never would have
happened fifty years ago.
Even our churches reflect the problem of not getting
around the skin color
problem—when
we see black churches with a picture of a Black Jesus on the cross. That is
done because of the many typical
depictions of a blue-eyed Caucasian Jesus.
However, both depictions are wrong!
Jesus is
not a ‘white’ God
nor is He a ‘black,’ ‘red’ or ‘yellow’ God.
It is presumption and the pride of life for any one denomination or even
any one race to say they are favored in
any way by the Lord over others.
As the sun’s light passes through a prism, it is broken up into all the
colors of the spectrum. In much the same
way, when God made man in His likeness, He passed His image (light) through the
prism of “human flesh” and gave us all the colors of race. As the
Bible says, “And He has made from one
blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth….”[i]
When Jesus
went through the
human ‘prism’ to become flesh He was called the Son of Man. He had
a similar complexion as those He lived
with. However, when He arose from the
dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father, He no longer looked like,
nor represented, any single race of people.
He was recognizable but different.
Jesus had returned to the ‘other side’ of the ‘prism.’
Revelation
1:14-15 gives us
His description, “His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and
His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in
a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters… His countenance was like
the sun shining in its strength.” Do you
know of any people who look like that?
When Jesus raptures the Church we will no longer be of separate races;
we will be like Him. “Beloved, now we
are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we
know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He
is.”[ii] We will be the, manifested, sons
of God – one
race. [iii] Even though we will look different,
we will
still recognize one another and know who we are.
DENOMINATIONS
When the
light of the
gospel of Christ, passed through the ‘prism’ of human perception, it resulted
in the various denominations we have today.
No one race or denomination has all revelation or is better than any
other. People are too different in
personalities and temperament for only one denomination to evangelize the
world. It takes all of us. We
are all, only parts of the whole of God’s
image. I believe it would be no stretch
of the imagination to think of the seven Churches, which Jesus talks about in
the book of Revelation, as seven different denominations. You wouldn’t
have to look too close to see
separately, the characteristics of those seven Churches in some of the
denominations we have today. We must
understand that each denomination, which relies on the blood of Jesus Christ
for salvation, knows only a part of the revelation of God.[iv] That is confirmed in 1 Corinthians
13:9: “For
we know in part and we prophesy in part.” All people, of all races, who claim
that Jesus is the Son of God who came in the flesh, are children of God. That’s
what John says: “By this you know the
Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh is of God.”[v] Consequently, if we are of God,
we are His
children.
WE
MUST WORK TOGETHER IN UNITY
I remember
growing up
thinking how fortunate I was to attend a church that had all the answers in the
Bible. One of the most presumptuous
things we did in the past was to say that our denomination taught the truth of
God’s word, while others did not. We
actually thought that people of other denominations were not saved. I know now,
we were judging them, and it was
not pleasing to God. Psalm 133
communicates to us that it is God’s will for His children to live and work
together in unity:
Behold,
how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity! It
is like the precious oil upon the head,
Running down on the beard, The beard of Aaron, Running down on the edge of his
garments. It is like the dew of Hermon,
Descending upon the mountains of Zion; For there the Lord commanded the
blessing—Life forevermore.
God wants
us to dwell
together in unity so we may reveal His love to the entire world. I like the
way one pastor put it, when he was
accused of being cultic because of his view of the Trinity. He
said he looked forward to when “Christians do
not judge one another by our diverse associations, nor the nuances of
semantics, but by our love and the sweet fruit of Christ in our lives.” Jesus said, in John 13:34-35, “A new
commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved
you, that you also love one another.
“By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love
for one another.” We read His
command again in John 15:12, “This is My commandment, that you love one
another as I have loved you.” And
again in John 15:17, “These things I command you, that you love one
another.” Paul, in Romans 13:8, and
1 Thessalonians 4:9 repeats this commandment of Jesus. Peter, in 1 Peter 1:22
does the same. The Apostle John, no less than six times,
repeats the command that we love one another.[vi] Do we not see a pattern here? Why is it so difficult to obey our Savior,
Jesus? Please, let’s stop fighting and
complaining about each other and just do it!
Let’s love one another! And that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker August, 2013
READ THE
BIBLE EVERY DAY
[iii]
See Romans 8:19, KJV
[vi] 1
John 3:
JONAH
AND THE
WHALE
Most
of us are familiar with the story of Jonah and the whale. Briefly— God
called Jonah to go to Nineveh to warn them of coming destruction, but Jonah
boarded a ship bound for Tarshish instead.
When God sent a storm to threaten the ship the sailors threw him into
the sea. This resulted in the calming of
the sea and the sailors fearing God and offering sacrifices to Him. God sent
a great fish (we call it a whale) to
swallow Jonah, from which he prayed for deliverance. After three days, the whale
vomited Jonah
onto dry land. Then Jonah went to
Nineveh and gives them the warning from God.
The citizens repented of their sins and God spared the city.
The
first chapter of Jonah relates this story to the point where Jonah is thrown
into the sea, which became calm. This
chapter concludes with verse seventeen when it says, “Now the LORD had prepared
a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah
was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” Then, chapter
two starts with the statement
that Jonah prayed to the LORD from the fish's belly. Because those statements
are recorded just after
Jonah was thrown overboard, we have assumed he was swallowed by the whale the
moment he was cast into the sea and, consequently, began praying.
Traditionally
we have believed that Jonah was kept, alive,
three days in the whale’s belly. God
could certainly have done that if He had wanted too. I believed this for many
years. In recalling this Bible story, we tend to put
the fact, that Jonah was alive in the whale, into a religiously correct
box. However, the verse that says, “…the
LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.” was only letting us know that
God had made preparations for what was about to happen to Jonah.
Recently
I heard a message preached by Rabbi/Calvary Pastor, Steve Babkow, in which he
points out Jonah was dead for the three days and three nights he was in the
whale. He showed us verses which
contradicted the idea that Jonah was alive in the whale’s belly. In examining
the scriptures—one must always do that to see if what is being
taught is true—I found him to be correct. It
appeared that the second chapter of Jonah
had a contradiction. Verse 1 said Jonah
prayed to the Lord “from the fish’s belly.” In verse 2 Jonah said, “Out of the
belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice.” (The Hebrew word used
in the second verse
means, a hollow place.) That raised the
question, “Which “belly” or place did Jonah pray from?” One
way of reconciling the two verses would be a scenario in which Jonah was
swallowed by the whale as soon as he was thrown into the sea. While he was suffocating
in the fish’s belly
he cried out to God just before he died and went to Sheol. There he continued
his prayer. From “Abraham’s bosom” Jonah prayed knowing
his body—in which he; his spirit/soul had
lived in—was in the belly of the
whale. That is why Jonah 2:1 says, “Then
Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the fish's belly.” However, what
was said in verse 5, “The
waters surrounded me, even to my soul; The deep closed around me; Weeds
were wrapped around my head” did not fit that picture.Jonah Drowned
When we look at the verses of chapter 2 in
chronologic order we learn what really happened to Jonah:
For
You cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the floods
surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me (v.3). The waters
surrounded me, even to my
soul; The deep closed around me; Weeds were wrapped around my head (v.5). "When
my soul fainted within me [he
died], I remembered the LORD; And my prayer went up to You, Into Your
holy temple (v.7). And he said: "I
cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, And He answered me. "Out
of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice (v.2).
Where is Sheol?Before
Jesus redeemed mankind, everyone who died went to a place of the dead named Sheol,
also called the pit. Sheol was an abode
deep in the heart of the earth, which was divided into two places; a place of
suffering called hell and a place of bliss called Abraham’s bosom. The
ungodly went to hell and the godly went
to the place of bliss, known as paradise.
These facts are revealed in Jesus’ story of Lazarus and the rich man, recorded in Luke 16:20-23.fter
studying these scriptures I came to the conclusion that when Jonah was thrown
into the sea he sank into the water where his head was wrapped with surrounding
sea weeds. The weeds entangled him and held
him down until he drowned. The way I understand
it now is that when Jonah died, his
spirit left his body and he began to sink down to Sheol/paradise. I surmise,
as he sank his spirit may have
seen the large fish swim up and swallow his body. Jonah Was Raised From the DeadAfter three days
God raised Jonah from the dead. This fact is confirmed in Jonah 2:6 when he
says, “You have brought up my life from the pit [Sheol], O LORD, my God.” The
Lord, then, caused the whale to vomit him
onto dry land. The detail that
Jonah was dead for three days and
raised alive, is confirmed again by Jesus in Matthew 12:40 when He said, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights
in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth [Sheol].”
Therefore, if Jesus’ body was dead, in the grave, for three days while His
Spirit went to Sheol to preach to those there, then Jesus was telling us Jonah’s
body was dead, in the belly of the whale, for three days and nights while his spirit was in Sheol.Some
teachers respond to Matthew 12:40
by saying Jonah was only symbolically dead.
However, they have to add the words, “symbolically dead” to the verse,
making the scripture read, “For as Jonah
was [symbolically dead] three days and three nights in the belly…”
This “adding of words to scripture” is
strictly forbidden. Proverbs 30:6 says,
“Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.”
And Revelations 22:18 says, “…If anyone adds
to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this
book.” When
God returned Jonah’s to his body he found himself in the whale, unable to
breath. He began to struggle. It
may have been that God used that movement
in the whale’s belly to cause the great fish to vomit Jonah, alive, onto dry
land; having caused the animal to swim near the shore after swallowing the
prophet. It would seem to me that this
version of the story would reconcile all of the verses of the book of Jonah.
In the third chapter of Jonah—after his resurrection
and deposit onto dry land—God commissioned him, a second time, to preach in
Nineveh. This time the prophet
obeyed Him. He went to Nineveh and preached that the city
would be overthrown in forty days. The
king and people repented and turned from their evil ways. Jonah 3:10 says, “Then
God saw their works,
that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that
He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.”
The last chapter uncovers Jonah’s, less than
compassionate heart, when he showed he was displeased with God’s mercy on the
city. God demonstrated to Jonah—through His creation
and destruction of a plant/shade
—that He is in control of everything; that He is a
merciful God who loves mankind. We see the
flaw in Jonah’s character when the prophet showed pity for a plant but not for the
people of Nineveh who were created in God’s image.
May we learn from Jonah’s story that nothing
is
impossible with God and that He is concerned with our relationship with Him as
well as our relationship with our brothers and sisters—which is much more important than our
own comfort.
And
that’s my opinion.Larry Parker
September 1, 2013
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
OUR
NEW BODIES
THE
TENT AND THE
MANSION
Some of you old timers out there just might
remember Stuart Hamblen’s tune, “This Old House.” An old man
is comparing his aging body to a
house. The chorus goes like this:
Ain't
gonna need this house no longer, Ain't gonna need this house no more.
Ain't got time to fix the shingles, Ain't got time to fix the floor.
Ain't got time to oil the hinges, Nor to mend the window pane.
Ain't gonna need this house no longer, I'm getting ready to meet the saints.
I will be turning 75 this December and know just
what Hamblen is talking about. The sad
thing about getting old, are the aches and pains that come with illnesses, as
well as the lack of energy we have to do the things that were easy before. However,
praise the Lord, we have a blessed
hope. Thanks to the Lord’s sacrifice,
when we are united with Christ in the air (raptured), we will be given new,
glorified, bodies.
We have a saying about our natural bodies, “The
spirit is willing but the body is weak,” meaning the body doesn’t always do
what our spirit wants it to do (Romans 7:22-23). However, when we get our glorified
bodies;
those bodies will be in perfect agreement and unity with our spirits. God gives
us a preview of our change with an
example in nature. The caterpillar, changing into
a
butterfly, is an illustration of the fundamental change that will take place in
our bodies. Boy, I am sure looking forward to that!
In the fifteenth chapter of
the Apostle Paul’s
first letter to the Church in Corinth, he gives us a treatise on “bodies.”
He speaks of heavenly bodies, earthly bodies,
and different kinds of fleshly bodies. Paul
informs us that God planned two human bodies for our spirits to live in; the
one we live in now, and the one we will live in in the future. The natural (mortal)
body is first and the
spiritual (immortal) body will come second, i.e. our resurrection body
(1Corintians 15:46). Our first physical
body is given life by God and, kept alive, by blood. Our second physical body
will be given life,
and kept alive, by the Holy Spirit. It
is called a “glorified” or “spiritual” body.
Paul calls our natural bodies
(which our spirits
live in) “tents.” He says God has
prepared new “buildings” for our spirits to live in in heaven (2Corintians
5:1). In John 14:2 Jesus tells us there
are “mansions” in heaven and He will prepare a “place” for us.
Because of these scriptures, I choose to
liken the new buildings or “places” our spirits will live in to mansions; I call
our two bodies, the tent and the
mansion. They both come from God.
THE
TENT (NATURAL
BODY)
The first man, Adam,
was made a natural
body from the dust of the earth. That
body became corruptible because of sin.
As a result, it must die (Genesis 2:17 & 3:6). The apostle Paul confirms
that, in Hebrews
9:27, “…it is appointed for men to die [at least] once…” The
only exception to that death is for those
who are alive when the rapture occurs.
Just as it says in 1Thessalonians 4:17, “…we who are alive and
remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall
always be with the Lord.” Our natural
body is the seed that becomes our spiritual body as 1Corinthians 15:44 says,
“It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body…” Thus,
is the natural body we have inherited
from Adam.
THE
MANSION (SPIRITUAL
BODY)
The second
Man, Jesus, is the first to receive a spiritual body (1Corinthians 15:46). In
the verse before that, He is called the
Lord from heaven; also named the last Adam. Jesus received His spiritual body
when He was
raised from the dead; that is what the scripture means when it says, “And He
[Jesus] is…the firstborn from the
dead…” (Colossians 1:18, emphasis mine).
This verse shows us, that just as we must be born into a natural body,
we must also be “born again” into a spiritual body. In John 3:3
Jesus told Nicodemus, “…unless one is born again [into a
spiritual body], he cannot see the [total] kingdom of God.”
When the Bible
tells us Jesus is the “first born from the dead,” it means He is the first to
be born into a spiritual body, i.e. resurrected into a spiritual body. He is
the first fruit of all, to be
resurrected and receive a spiritual body.
The rest of us will complete our second birth, after Him, at Christ’s
coming (1Corinthians 15:20 & 23). Our
second birth begins when we accept Jesus as our Savior. That’s when we
are conceived into the family
of God. We immediately become His
children and can claim to be “born again.”
Nevertheless, the new birth process
is not completed until we move into our spiritual bodies at the rapture.
WHAT WILL THE MANSION BE LIKE?
By searching the scriptures we can
learn what our new bodies will be like.
First and foremost we will be like Christ. 1John 3:2 says, “…we
shall be like Him
[Jesus]…” We will be “one” with Christ;
that carries with it instant, total, communication with God and each other. It
will be the answer to Jesus’ prayer to the
Father, in John 17:21. We will all be
one together. There can be nothing
better!
When Jesus met with the disciples,
after His resurrection, He showed them that His glorified, physical, body had
the ability to eat food (Luke 24:42-43). Jesus had the capability to instantly
appear
and disappear at will (John 20:26). When
He did that He traveled at the speed of thought. Jesus confirms we will be able
to do this
when He told Nicodemus everyone who is born of the Spirit [born again] is like
the wind, you cannot tell where it (glorified body) comes from and where it (glorified
body) goes (John 3:8). The apostle Paul
tells us, “…we have the mind of Christ” (1Corintians 2:16) albeit, as he says
in 1Corintians 13:9, for now only in part.
In verse ten he goes on to say,
“But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be
done away.” That means when we are
raptured, we will have the total mind of Christ, i.e., total awareness. Our new bodies will be immortal
(1Corintians 15:53). Our senses will be fantastic. As an example, if we were looking at the moon
while standing on the earth, our eyesight will be sharp enough to clearly see
Neal Armstrong’s footprints next to the remains of his lunar lander, and
everything else the astronauts left there.
If we wanted to, just by thinking about it, we could instantly put
ourselves on the moon next to those artifacts.
Our indestructible bodies would have no problem surviving on the airless
moon without a spacesuit. They will be sustained by the
Holy
Spirit [breath] of God (Genesis 2:7, John 20:22, Revelation 11:12).
We will be able to see
the entire universe,
supernaturally, clearer than the best pictures from the Hubble Telescope. We
will be able to fly, and have unlimited
strength and endurance. As the Bible says,
“…They [spiritual bodies] shall mount up with wings like eagles, They [spiritual
bodies] shall run and not be weary, They [spiritual bodies] shall walk and not
faint” (Isaiah 40:31). I’m sure this is only a part of what our new
bodies
will be able to do. Our senses of taste,
smell and touch, will be comparable to our sense of sight.
To sum up what I do know, our new
spiritual bodies will:
Always be “one” with Father, Son, Holy
Spirit Be
indestructible Be
able to appear and disappear instantly Be able to travel to anywhere in God’s
creation, at the speed of thought Have total awareness Be able to communicate perfectly,
without the need of speech
That is the spiritual body—our
mansion,
we will inherit from Jesus. What a wonderful future we can
look forward
to, provided for us by our Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ. When we compare
our natural bodies with our
spiritual bodies, it is truly like comparing a tent with a mansion.
And
that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker
October, 2013
READ
THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
THE
RAPTURE AND DANIEL’S 70th WEEK
We are living in the end times. One day soon, Christians will be caught-up in
the air to be with Jesus. This event is
called the rapture and/or the second coming of Christ. I grew up in a church
that believed the rapture
was imminent and would occur before the end-time event, known as the
Tribulation Period, begins. They taught this
time period will commence with the antichrist’s signing of a seven-year peace
treaty with Israel, followed by the horrors of the wrath of God. That belief
is called a Pre-Tribulation
position on the rapture. For a long
time, I believed it was true. I did not
want to change my acceptance of this view because it assured me I would be
taken out of this troubled world, at any time, before it got too bad.
I believe, according to the Bible, this “Tribulation
Period” should more correctly be called “Daniel’s 70th Week.” A prediction in Daniel 9:24 reveals, seventy weeks are
determined for Israel to finish the transgression. A week, in this prophecy,
means a span of
seven years. Jesus’ crucifixion completed
the first sixty-nine “weeks” (Daniel 9:25-25).
Verse twenty-seven affirms, in the midst of the last (70th)
week the antichrist will cause the Jewish sacrifices to cease (the abomination
of desolation). To call the entire seven-year period, the
tribulation is confusing because Jesus said, in Matthew 24:15-21, the great
tribulation will not start until the antichrist commits the “abomination of
desolation.” This doesn’t occur until we
are halfway through that time period.
Acting on incorrect beliefs can get us into
trouble. That is the reason I question everything
I am taught by studying the
Bible. Eventually my inquiries included
what I had been taught about the rapture.
These rapture traditions are as follows:
The Rapture is Imminent The Antichrist Will Not Be Revealed
Until After the Rapture The
Entire Seven-Year Period Is the Wrath of God The
Church Will Not
Be Present During the Great
Tribulation The
Rapture Will Come “as a thief” for
the Church The
Rapture Will Be In Secret
I searched for scriptures to support these proclamations
but could find none. To the contrary, in
studying the “whole” Bible I became convinced these Pre-Trib beliefs were in
error.
Error (1),
The
Rapture
is Imminent
I discovered that the seven Jewish feasts were more
than a celebration; they were prophetic of Jesus’ first and second comings. The
first three feasts were fulfilled when
Jesus died, for our sins, and rose again during His first coming. The fourth
prophetic feast was fulfilled on
the day of Pentecost when the Church was filled with the Holy Spirit; fulfillments
of those prophecies were on the exact days of the feasts. Consequently, it is
logical to believe the
prophecies of the last three feasts will be fulfilled in the fall of the year
when they occur during Jesus’ second
coming. Therefore, the rapture could not
be imminent during any other time of
the year.
In Matthew 24:15 & 29 Jesus gave us three signs
we are to look for, before He comes again.
1. The abomination of desolation must occur. 2. The third temple must
be built for this to
happen. 3. The sun and moon will be
darkened. These three signs must transpire
before we will be caught up to be with Him.
Therefore, until they happen, the teaching that the second coming is
always imminent is wrong.
Error (2), The Antichrist Will Not Be
Revealed Until After the Rapture
While reading 2Thessoloians 2:1-3, I found this
contradiction
of that teaching:
Now,
brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering
together to Him [the rapture], we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or
troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though
the day of Christ had come. Let no one
deceive you by any means; for that Day
[the rapture] will not come unless the falling away comes first,
and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition [antichrist].
Paul
is telling us clearly
that the rapture will not occur until after the antichrist is revealed. He goes
so far as to tell us not to be
deceived by any other incorrect interpretation.
Therefore, the teaching that the antichrist will not be revealed until
after the rapture is wrong.
Error (3), The Entire Seven-Year Period
Is the Wrath of God and (4) The Church Will Not be Present during the Great
Tribulation
When
I look at Daniel’s 70th
Week I find it to be divided into four different divisions. According to Daniel
9:27 (1) the antichrist’s
signing of a seven year peace treaty with Israel begins this period. Halfway
through the treaty he desecrates the
rebuilt Jewish temple and (2) begins his persecution of Jews (and Christians) i.e.,
the great tribulation. This oppression
is the wrath of Satan, not God’s wrath. Jesus confirms the fact that the
cruelty is
from the antichrist (possessed by Satan) who desecrates the Jewish temple
(Matthew 24:15 & 21). He also tells
us the great tribulation will be cut short by (3) the rapture; after which (4)
the wrath of God begins. The last trump, at
the rapture, will sound very much like God’s first
trumpet did from Mount Sinai as recorded in Exodus 19:16. It will be like this:
For then there will be great tribulation, such as
has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever
shall be. And unless those days were
shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be
shortened. …Immediately after the
tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give
its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will
be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of
Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and
they will see the Son of Man coming on
the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels
with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect [the
rapture] from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. …For
the great day of His wrath has come, and
who is able to stand (Matthew
24:21-22 & 29-31, Hebrews 12:19-21, Revelation 6:17)?
These
scriptures clearly show the
Church (the elect) being in, and gathered out
of the great tribulation to be with Jesus.
It does not separate Jesus’ second coming from the rapture. They
are at the same time! While the rapture is instant, the events of
the second coming extend over a period of time.
A sealed scroll, containing
the wrath of God, is shown to John in Revelation
5:1. The rapture will occur after the
scroll’s sixth seal is broken and before
the seventh seal is breached, i.e. before God’s wrath is released. A great
earthquake, the sun becoming dark and
the moon, not giving her light, are the signs we are to look for. Revelation 6:12 reveals this fact; “I looked when
He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun
became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood.” Matthew
24:29-31, quoted above, and Luke
21:25-28 confirms that this is when we are to look up for the rapture. Jesus
said, “…when
these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your
redemption draws near,” i.e. look for the rapture, which will be imminent only
after we see these signs.
After the rapture, the
seventh seal is
broken, which opens the scroll releasing God’s wrath. Revelation 8:1-16:1
describes 7 angels
blowing trumpets, that bring wrath, and concludes with 7 angels pouring bowls
of wrath. Thank God we will be gone
before that happens. “For God did not appoint us [the Church] to wrath,
but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake
or sleep, we should live together with Him.
Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are
doing” (1Thessoloians
5:9-11).
The Pre-Trib teachers have confused the
great tribulation, which is the wrath of Satan, with the wrath of God. Therefore,
the teaching that the entire seven-year
period is the wrath of God and that the Church will not be present during the
great tribulation is wrong.
Error
(5), The Rapture Will Come “as a thief” for the Church
The
Pre-Trib teachers say, “Because the
rapture is imminent, we will be surprised (like when a thief comes) when it
happens.” They quote 1 Thessalonians 5:2
as a proof text, ignoring verse 4, which contradicts them. Nevertheless, Jesus
said, “… as the days of
Noah were, so also will the [second] coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew
24:37). Noah and his family knew the
Flood was coming and prepared for it.
Noah preached that message but was not believed. Therefore the skeptics
were surprised by the deluge
(Genesis 7:4). Just so, the Lord’s
coming will not be a surprise to those of us who are watching for the signs
Jesus has given us. However, it will come as a thief in the night for the unsaved
who do
not believe the gospel.
For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of
the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction
comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not
escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should
overtake you as a thief (1Thessalonians 5:2-4, emphasis added).
Therefore,
the teaching that the rapture will come for
the Church “as a thief,” is wrong.
Error (6), The Rapture Will
Be In Secret
The series
of Pre-Trib,
Left Behind books, advocates a secret rapture in which believers (of Christ)
suddenly disappear. However, Jesus said
He is “…coming on the clouds...” (Matthew 24:30, 26:64, Mark 13:26, & 14:62).
The angel, in Revelation 1:7 adds, “…and every eye will see Him…” How will our Savior appear on the
clouds? He
will appear with a great shout and an, ear piercing, very long, blast from
God’s trumpet getting louder and louder.
His angels will gather His elect and The lion of Judah will roar
mightily from on high to the, left behind, inhabitants below; frightening the
unsaved so that they will hide in caves and say to the rocks, “Fall on us and
hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the
Lamb!” (See Matthew 24:31, Exodus 19:19,
Jeremiah 25:30, Revelation 6:16, Hebrews 12:19-21) The
Bible teaches that every eye shall
see Him (Revelation 1:7). There is nothing secret about that. Therefore, the teaching that the rapture will
be in secret is wrong.
Although the Church will have
to go through the
great tribulation during Daniel’s 70th week, Jesus does not want us
to fear it. The Bible articulates, in
many places, we are not to have fear. To
have fear is to lack trust in God. Jesus
admonishes us on six different occasions, “do not fear.” He will
protect us just as He protected the
three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace and Daniel in the lion’s den (some
of us may have to suffer martyrdom, which is happening in the world even today). That
is why it is so important we learn to
trust Jesus now. As it says in Proverbs
3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own
understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your
paths.” Know that, “…the Lord is
faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one”
(2Thessalonians 3:3).
Think about it.
Daniel’s 70th week is about to commence. We need to
prepare ourselves for it by
drawing as close to, and trusting Jesus, as much as we can. Very soon now, God
will wash away the curse
of sin from this world and give us a new earth, free from all troubles. “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with
a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the
dead in Christ will rise first. Then we
who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore
comfort one another with these
words” (1Thessalonians 4:16-18).
And
that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker
November, 2013
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
JESUS’
INCARNATIONHOW JESUS,
THE LAST ADAM, BECAME HUMANThe First
AdamThe word, Adam, means first man. God
created the first man and placed him in the Garden of Eden. Adam was created
a sinless being in the image
of God, without a biological mother and father.
Although he had no earthly father and mother he was wholly human. Our
heavenly Father placed a tree in the
garden and told Adam he was forbidden to eat its fruit. God’s purpose
was to give the first man a
choice between obeying and disobeying Him; thus providing men free will.
It
was Father God’s desire that men
remain sinless. However, Adam did not
obey His Creator’s command and became guilty of sin, which separated him, and
consequently us, from our Maker. The
consequence of Adam’s choice is recorded
in Romans 6:23, “For
the wages of sin is death [separation from God], but the gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In
the second half of this scripture, we find that God loves us so much He
provided a way (gift) for us to be reconciled with Him. God’s method to
accomplish this was to
provide a second, i.e. last Adam,
Jesus, “… to be made like His brethren … to make propitiation for the
sins of the people (Hebrews 2:17).
The Last Adam
In
order to be called, the last Adam or “second”
Man (see 1Corinthians 15:45,
47), that person would have to
be similar to the first Adam, i.e. without a biological
mother and father and wholly human. However, He
would have to remain sinless, in
order to pay the penalty of death for our sins.
Melchizedek, as pre-incarnate
Jesus, the last Adam, is described
in Hebrews, 7:3. He is, “…without father, without mother,
without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made
like the Son of God…” Belief in this
“last Adam” who became a “life-giving spirit” will give us reconciliation with
God and eternal life (see Romans 10:9). The last Adam, Jesus, remained God’s sinless Man while also
being wholly God.
God Incarnate
God
became human through the embodiment of Jesus Christ; being born of the woman
Mary. In Luke 1:35 the angel said, “…The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will
overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called
the Son of God.” It was prophesied to
happen in this way. “…the virgin [Mary]
shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
However, if the last Adam (Jesus) has no
biological mother and father; how is the virgin, Mary, Jesus’ mother? We
find the answer in the New Testament books
of Luke and Hebrews.
In Luke
1:31 the angel told Mary, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb
and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus” (emphasis added). In
Hebrews 10:5 we find a verse that says, “…a
body You have prepared for Me.” Because
the angel told Mary she would conceive in
her womb, I have concluded, from the interpretation of that phrase and the
verse in Hebrews 10:5, that Jesus’ body was prepared as an embryo by God and
placed in Mary’s womb.
Important
Details
The Hebrew word used in Isaiah for conceive, can
also be translated, becomes pregnant. We
know natural conception takes place in the fallopian tube. However, contrary
to that, the angel told
Mary she would “conceive” in her womb. When the angel told Mary
she would conceive, the
Greek word translated as conceive primarily means to figuratively clasp, i.e.
seize. It is important to note where she
would clasp it, i.e. in her womb.
Luke, also points out in chapter 2 verse 21,
that: “He [Jesus] was conceived [clasped] in the womb.”
Biblical evidence supports the fact that Father
God
created Jesus’ body (Hebrews 10:5). As I
have said, I believe that that “body” was an embryo. Psalm 2:7,
Hebrews 1:5, and 5:5 all record
God saying, "…You are my Son, today I have begotten You…" There,
Mary’s body seized and nourished it. Therefore,
the incarnation process, that was completed when Christ was born, makes Mary
Jesus’ surrogate mother, with no biological association to the
Lord.
The Surrogate
Mother of ChristA surrogate is a person appointed
to act for another or a person who acts
in the place of another person. In other
words, a surrogate mother carries another woman’s child in her womb and gives
birth to a baby that is not her own biological son or daughter. That process
is called a gestational
surrogacy. The surrogate becomes
pregnant via embryo transfer into her womb, a child of which she is not the
biological mother.Therefore,
my conclusion is that God created the embryo (with no
biological mother or father) that was to become the body of Christ, i.e. the
last Adam. That is when Jesus emptied
Himself, from heaven, and entered the “body,” which was placed by the Holy
Spirit into Mary’s womb. (The NRSV Bible
translates Philippians 2:7 this way, “…[Jesus] emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave, being born in human
likeness. And being found in human
form.”) When the Holy Spirit placed the
embryo into Mary’s womb her body clasped, or seized it, so it would became
attached to her womb for nourishment and growth. That is the moment when Mary
became the
gestational surrogate mother of Christ.
Jesus’ Birth Was PainlessChildren inherit the original sin of Adam, which gives us a sinful nature
in our bodies. As
a result of the original sin of Adam and Eve, women suffer labor pain
while giving birth. We learn that in
Genesis 3:16, “To the
woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In
pain you shall bring forth children….”
Jesus was sinless and therefore caused no labor pain for Mary at His
birth. This
truth is revealed in Isaiah 66:7, “Before
she [Mary] was in labor,
she gave birth; Before her pain came, She delivered a male child.” The
phrase “Before her pain came…” means, because
of original sin Mary would
have labor pain later, when she delivered her and Joseph’s
biological children. Jesus was born, and remained, sinless,
therefor; there is no question
that the virgin, Mary, was the surrogate
mother of Jesus. She (like all of
mankind born from Adam) carried the stain of the first Adam’s original sin. Therefore,
all of Mary’s biological children,
who were called Jesus’ brothers and sisters were also born in sin (see Matthew
12:46-47 and Psalm 51:5). Because of
that, Mary’s other children could not be organically related to Jesus nor could
she. Nevertheless, the false assumption continues
to be made, by many in the Church today, that Jesus was Mary’s biological son
and her other children were His half-brothers and half-sisters. I respectfully
disagree. And that’s my opinion.
Larry ParkerDecember, 2013
MERRY
CHRISTMAS!
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
We
Must Make a Choice God made man in His own image. He was created a sinless, perfect human
being. In his loins was the DNA makeup
of the beginning—of all who were to follow him by birth.[1] That means we were created when Adam was created. God loves us, and wanted us to remain sinless
and live with Him forever, so much so that He wrote everyone’s names in His “Book
of Life.”[2] No one was excluded! It is a
registry that gives the whole world access
to heaven. However, that registry needs
an “RSVP” from each and every person, in order for them to remain on the list
and enter heaven.
Our heavenly Father placed trees in the Garden of
Eden and told Adam he could freely eat of them, with one exception. God’s
purpose was to give man a choice between obeying and disobeying Him; thus
providing men with free will. To have
free will is to have the ability to choose.
The initial choice God gave
us is between two things. 1) Do nothing,
or 2) obey God’s condition (prohibition).
We must choose; whether we
want to or not, because to do nothing is, in fact, a choice. For a sinless man
(like Adam was at the time)
to do nothing (not eat the forbidden fruit) was a choice for eternal life. However,
Adam decided to disobey God’s
condition, and eat from the forbidden tree.[3] This choice resulted in death and
condemnation for Adam and all his descendants.[4]
For mankind all was lost—but for God all
things are possible.[5] The Creator gave mankind a special gift
because He loves us. The scriptures tell us, “…the gift of God
is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
Lord”[6]
and “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”[7]
“…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
you will be saved…”[8] That
means if you obey God by repenting of your sins and accept Jesus as your Lord
and Savior, you will be saved from death and hell— born
again.
Salvation is the time when we are conceived, by
the
Holy Spirit, into the family of God.
This conception begins the process of being born again, which concludes
when we receive our glorified bodies at the rapture, i.e. the first resurrection. It
is the “RSVP” we need, for our names to be
saved in heaven’s registry[9]. Because Christ’s shed blood washes our sins
clean, our names will not be blotted out from God’s Book of Life,[10]
which He wrote before any of us were born.
To Do Nothing
is to Accept Condemnation Adam’s
decedents still have the freedom to do
nothing or accept God’s condition (plan) of salvation through His Son, Jesus.
However, for us, the result of doing nothing
is different than doing nothing was for a sinless Adam. We are already condemned;
therefore, to do nothing
is to choose death. However, Jesus came
into the world that we might have another choice. In John 3:17 we learn, “For
God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved.”
To accept God’s condition of salvation through
faith in Jesus is to choose life. “He
who believes in Him [Jesus] is not condemned; but he who does not believe is
condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God.”[11] Anyone
who rejects Jesus, the Christ, will have his, or her name blotted out of God’s
Book of Life[12] and
cannot be admitted into heaven. Sadly, those
who reject Jesus will have, unknowingly, chosen death and hell. That choice
is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, who draws
men and women to Christ. It is the only unforgivable sin.
The choice is between a curse or a blessing. Deuteronomy 30:19 puts it this way, “I call
heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before
you life and death, blessing and cursing;
therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may [make the same
choice and] live.” Even Jesus, our
example, had to choose obedience as well (willingly go to the cross), “…that He
may know to refuse the evil and choose the good [life for mankind].”[13]
How does one choose life (heaven) or death
(hell)? It is a fact that one must choose not to go to hell. We
ignorantly choose hell, by not accepting
Jesus as our Lord. People who don’t want
anything to do with God are making their choice to go to a place where He is
not manifested (hell). We choose heaven,
by accepting Jesus as our Savior. Remember,
to do nothing is a choice, in and of itself.
Therefore, for sinful mankind, to do nothing (not accept Christ) is to
choose death and hell. When we obey
God’s condition (of going through Jesus to have access to the Father) by
repenting and asking His Son Jesus to be our Savior and Lord, we choose life
and heaven. Again, the choice is hell or
heaven. What
is Hell Like? Hell
is a place where God does not manifest Himself, or His attributes—some
of which are light and the water of
life. In Mark
9:43 & 47 and Luke 16:23, 24 we find that hell (or hades), is
a dark place without God (light and water).
It is a place of unquenchable fire and torment. I cannot believe anyone
would purposely
choose to go to hell. If they do, it is
because they reject Jesus and do not believe what hell is like. The people who
say they want to join their
friends and have a party in hell don’t know they will not have access to anyone
else there. But they will have knowledge
that other people are in heaven, which is another torment. Water is a blessing
from God that brings
life. That is why there is no water
there. We see that in Luke 16:24, “Then
he [the rich man] cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send
Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for
I am tormented in this flame.” The ultimate
end of death, hades and anyone not found written in the “Lamb’s” Book of Life is
to be cast into a lake of fire.[14] It will be because their names were blotted
out when they rejected Christ[15]—at
their last opportunity. What is
Heaven like? God
is there!
Heaven is a place where our heavenly Father manifests Himself and His
attributes. Heaven has a throne[16]
with a pure river of life; water clear as crystal proceeding from it for the
healing of the nations,[17]
and a temple with the ark of His covenant. [18] The heavenly city is called, the New
Jerusalem.[19] The book of Revelation reveals, “The
construction of its wall was of
jasper; and the city was pure
gold, like clear glass. The foundations
of the wall of the city were
adorned with all kinds of precious stones:”[20] There will be peace and tranquility
there. The scripture also says, “And God
will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor
sorrow, nor crying. “There shall be no
more pain, for the former things have passed away.”[21]
Heaven is more than just a city. Its vast countryside is full of beautiful
flowers, grass and animals. The prophet
Isaiah describes heaven, which came down to earth,[22]
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with
the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a
little child shall lead them. The cow
and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the
lion shall eat straw like the ox. The
nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, And the weaned child shall put
his hand in the viper's den.”[23]
Choose Life We are advised, in the book of Job, “Let us choose
justice for ourselves; Let us know among ourselves what is good [life or
death].”[24] Joshua admonishes us to, “…choose for
yourselves this day whom you will serve …But as for me and my house, we will
serve the LORD.”[25] This is not an exclusionary gospel.
Anyone
who wants may come to Jesus. Jesus
said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in
and out…”[26] Therefore,
anyone may go through the “door” of heaven.
May we all choose Jesus, “….for there is no other name under heaven given among
men by which we must be saved.”[27]
Oh—by the way, speaking of choosing life
or death, we must never presume to make that choice for another person; no
matter how small (fetus) they may be.
Just saying! And that’s my opinion. READ THE BIBLE EVERY
DAY
Larry Parker January, 2014
[2]
See Psalm 139:15-16, Luke 10:20b, Ephesians 1:4
[4] Genesis
3:3, John
3:18, Romans
6:23a
[10]
Exodus 32:33, Revelation 3:5
[14] See
Revelation 20:14-15
The Salt of the Earth
The
preaching of the gospel is not just
for pastors and teachers. The gospel can
be spread when a Christian gives his or her testimony of salvation; and life
with Jesus to family and acquaintances.
However, our actions speak with a louder voice then our verbal testimony. We
are always being watched by the unsaved
world to see how we behave. Do we live
the life of obeying Christians?
Christians Are Salt
In the Sermon on the Mount[1] Jesus gives us a list of characteristics
(beatitudes) of a certain group of people.
They are—the poor in spirit - those who mourn - the meek -
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness - the merciful - the pure in
heart - the peacemakers and those who are persecuted for righteousness'
sake. Jesus is talking about His
followers, who are called Christians today.
He says, “You are the salt of the earth…”[2]
However, the label of “salt of the
earth” carries a responsibility.
Salt enhances the flavor and
is a preservative of
whatever it has been put into. We
Christians,
are not of this world but have
been put into it for
God’s purpose[3]; one of
which is to be “salt” to those around us.
How can we, as human “salt,” enhance the flavor of life of those around
us as well as introduce them to preservation, i.e. salvation? We do so by being
an influence to show them
the way to Jesus; by the spoken word as well as our actions. It is vital that
this be done in public as
well as personal life.
Salt
in Politics
Satan’s strategy has always
been to subvert God’s
plan by diverting our attention away from what He wants us to do. The evil one
wants to divert us away from
public life by suggesting we will be “holier” if we stay in church, away from “dirty”
politics. That way, he undermines the
Christian groundwork our founding Fathers established for this nation. However,
God says we must be “salt” and that,
“…to obey is better than
sacrifice…”[4] Therefore, Christians are responsible to be
“salt” wherever we are; as well as in the environment of politics—by being involved.
The
Salt Has Lost Its Flavor
By not participating in politics
(voting), we
Christians have lost the flavor of our “salt.”
Because of that, we have failed our nation. Pastors have a responsibility
and share some
of the blame. We have not been properly
taught how it is our Christian duty
to get out and vote for men and women who will govern according to godly
principles. I was amazed when some of
our church leaders (who did inspire their follower to vote) actually encouraged
congregants to vote for candidates
who supported what the Bible clearly calls sin.
What were they thinking!
Jesus tells us what happens
when salt loses its
flavor. He says, “…if the salt loses its
flavor… It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot
by men…”[5]
and “…men throw it out….”[6] We have lost our flavor by allowing godless
men and women to control our government and the result is that values of
Christians are being trampled underfoot by them and we (the salt of the earth)
are being thrown out of public life altogether.
Christians
Must Re-Acquire Flavor
We need to repent of our failure
to be a flavored
“salt” to this nation. We need a mighty
revival that brings confession of our sins and repentance, with a willingness
to get out and vote for godly men and women.
Only that will save us from the curse, and wrath, which comes from
disobeying God. "Behold, I set
before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the
commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; and the curse,
if you do not obey the
commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command
you…”[7] Let’s become flavored salt once again.
Mark 9:50 says, “Salt is good, but if
the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves,
and have peace with
one another.” If we love our nation and
want it to be blessed rather than cursed—we
must
VOTE FOR GODLY LEADERS!
And that’s my opinion.
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
Larry
Parker
February, 2014
[1]
Matthew, Chapter five
The Salt of the Earth
The preaching of the gospel is not just
for pastors and teachers. The gospel can
be spread when a Christian gives his or her testimony of salvation; and life
with Jesus to family and acquaintances.
However, our actions speak with a louder voice then our verbal testimony. We
are always being watched by the unsaved
world to see how we behave. Do we live
the life of obeying Christians?
Christians Are Salt
In the Sermon
on the Mount[1] Jesus gives us a list of characteristics
(beatitudes) of a certain group of people.
They are—the poor in spirit - those who mourn - the meek -
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness - the merciful - the pure in
heart - the peacemakers and those who are persecuted for righteousness'
sake. Jesus is talking about His
followers, who are called Christians today.
He says, “You are the salt of the earth…”[2]
However, the label of “salt of the
earth” carries a responsibility.
Salt enhances
the flavor and is a preservative of
whatever it has been put into. We
Christians,
are not of this
world but have been put into it for
God’s purpose[3]; one of
which is to be “salt” to those around us.
How can we, as human “salt,” enhance the flavor of life of those around
us as well as introduce them to preservation, i.e. salvation? We do so by being
an influence to show them
the way to Jesus; by the spoken word as well as our actions. It is vital that
this be done in public as
well as personal life.
Salt
in Politics
Satan’s
strategy has always been to subvert God’s
plan by diverting our attention away from what He wants us to do. The evil one
wants to divert us away from
public life by suggesting we will be “holier” if we stay in church, away from “dirty”
politics. That way, he undermines the
Christian groundwork our founding Fathers established for this nation. However,
God says we must be “salt” and that,
“…to obey is better than
sacrifice…”[4] Therefore, Christians are responsible to be
“salt” wherever we are; as well as in the environment of politics—by being involved.
The
Salt Has Lost Its Flavor
By not participating
in politics (voting), we
Christians have lost the flavor of our “salt.”
Because of that, we have failed our nation. Pastors have a responsibility
and share some
of the blame. We have not been properly
taught how it is our Christian duty
to get out and vote for men and women who will govern according to godly
principles. I was amazed when some of
our church leaders (who did inspire their follower to vote) actually encouraged
congregants to vote for candidates
who supported what the Bible clearly calls sin.
What were they thinking!
Jesus tells us
what happens when salt loses its
flavor. He says, “…if the salt loses its
flavor… It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot
by men…”[5]
and “…men throw it out….”[6] We have lost our flavor by allowing godless
men and women to control our government and the result is that values of
Christians are being trampled underfoot by them and we (the salt of the earth)
are being thrown out of public life altogether.
Christians
Must Re-Acquire Flavor
We need to repent
of our failure to be a flavored
“salt” to this nation. We need a mighty
revival that brings confession of our sins and repentance, with a willingness
to get out and vote for godly men and women.
Only that will save us from the curse, and wrath, which comes from
disobeying God. "Behold, I set
before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the
commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; and the curse,
if you do not obey the
commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command
you…”[7] Let’s become flavored salt once again.
Mark 9:50 says, “Salt is good, but if
the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves,
and have peace with
one another.” If we love our nation and
want it to be blessed rather than cursed—we
must
VOTE FOR GODLY
LEADERS!
And that’s my opinion.READ THE BIBLE EVERY
DAY
Larry
Parker February, 2014
[1]
Matthew, Chapter five
Why
I Love the Assemblies of God It was late 1944
during the waning months of World
War II. A desperate woman had run out of
coal for the furnace that winter day. The house was as cold as an ice box. She
was thirty years old; a mother alone with
five children and no way of providing for them.
Her husband had deserted her for another woman a month after her fifth
child (a boy) was born. The father was
never to return, nor did he ever offer any financial support. The other two
boys and two girls were cold
and hungry. The children had been
underfed for weeks. For several days now
she had had no food for them at all. Sobbing
in despair, she was afraid and did not know what to do. Her name was Evelyn
Parker—my mom. Thinking about it now, I believe she offered
up a prayer in her distress, because God took control. Somehow
someone found out about the desperate
situation in the little row house on Park Road in Washington D.C. and called
the authorities. We were taken to the
hospital in a warm ambulance and treated for malnutrition. I was only six years
old. I remember someone tenderly laying me on the
same gurney as my seven year old sister.
Later, we were moved to some kind of government facility, for
observation. I kept crying for my mother
and was told that if I would stop I could see her. It was only a ruse. It took several days before we were returned
to her. A lady, we later came to know as Gloria, heard
about our circumstance. She was a member
of the Full Gospel Tabernacle; an Assembly of God church on Massachusetts Ave.
in downtown Washington, D.C. She
informed her pastor, whom we later learned to call, Brother Mahan, of our
desperate needs. He was a man who
believed James 1:27 when it says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and
the Father is this: to visit orphans [fatherless] and widows [single moms] in
their trouble…” He directed the board
members of The Full Gospel Tabernacle to set up a plan that paid to have an
adequate amount of milk delivered to our house on a regular basis. Gloria
helped mom get on the government “relief” program and talked her into taking us
to church. I looked up to Brother Mahan
as my “surrogate” father until he died three years later. I remember
turning my face in a corner of the
funeral parlor to hide my tears, shed over this kind pastor who had gone to
heaven. ********** The poor neighborhoods in Washington D.
C were already integrated in the forties.
I remember playing with the colored kids (that is what black children
were called then) as a normal event. We
thought nothing of it. It did not matter
what color you were, we were all poor; poor white children and poor colored
children. I was just another poor white
boy. I distinctly remember a kind
colored lady friend of mom’s who lived across the alleyway from our house,
buying and giving me my first belt (I have never forgotten that kindness). I
don’t remember any episodes of prejudice as
a child. Therefore,
I was very glad to read that the Assemblies of God (AG) and the United
Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies of God (UPCAG) has reconciled, during
Black History Month. General
Superintendent George O. Wood said, "We have now been on a four-year
journey with the United Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies of God, which was
birthed in 1919 because of racism in the Assemblies of God. Now, the Lord has
brought us together again
in a more formal partnership, to hold high the name of Jesus and advance His
mission in the power of the Spirit."[1]
Church Camp One
summer Gloria arranged for mom and us kids, to go with her to the Assemblies of
God Church Camp in the mountains of Falling Waters, West Virginia.
She rented a tent, which had been pitched
over a wooden platform. The tent
had
cots to sleep on and a small stove to cook our meals. (Campers who wanted to could eat in a
cafeteria.) It was great fun, and
I even
enjoyed the church services with the spirited singing that was an important
part of the worship.
When I
was thirteen-years-old, Gloria arranged for me to be hired to work in the
cafeteria. The camp had a program
of
hiring less-advantaged children, which allowed us to experience two or three
weeks of Church Camp during the summer. There
was a large bell mounted on a pole just outside of the kitchen door.
It was rung to alert the campers that dinner
was ready as well as to announce when it was time for services.
I have fond memories of that bell and can
remember its sound even today. The
cafeteria work, I was given, provided for my room and board.
My main job was to wash pots and pans and set
up the tables for the dinners. In
addition, the leaders gave us a coupon each week, which was valued at one
dollar. We were able to use the
coupons
to purchase goodies from the snack bar (a bottle of soda was only five cents). The boys sleeping quarters were rooms on the
second floor above the snack bar. I
remember enjoying the delicious smells of cooking burgers and fries wafting up
from below.
I Gave My Heart
to Jesus
The
summer, I was sixteen, became the most important year of my life.
It was after the evening service at the
Church Camp. A friend, who was my
roommate, asked me, “Have you ever asked Jesus to come into your heart?” I found it strange he would ask me that. I have been going to church for years and had
assumed, and told everyone, I was already saved. That night, when he asked me that probing
question the Holy Spirit convicted me.
My friend said, “Let’s go to the prayer room.” I don’t remember my roommate being there
after that. I fell on my knees and
forthrightly asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins and come into my heart.
My confession was followed by a great sense
of peace and of a great weight being lifted from my shoulders.
Joy filled my heart as I worshipped my newly
found Savior and Lord. Afterward,
I
walked across the campground to go to bed as great peals of thunder and bright
flashes of lightning announced a coming rain (I like to think the angels were
applauding my decision to follow Jesus).
Two nights later I was praying in the prayer room
after service. I remember having a
burden, and praying for my sister Jean when all of a sudden I began speaking in
other tongues. Strange words rolled off
my tongue with no conscious effort on my part.
I had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit without specifically
asking for it. (This is not without
precedence. See Acts 10:44). The
next day, during the afternoon service I
thought, “Can I still speak in tongues as easily as I did last night?”
As soon as we had opportunity for
congregational prayer I opened my mouth to pray. Once again I spoke in a clear
prayer
language. I knew then that the Holy
Spirit would never leave me. And He
hasn’t! I believe it was the power of
this “baptism of the Holy Spirit” that kept me from committing, more grievous
sins than I did, later, in my weak times with the Lord.
Mom never did remarry, so I never had a male leader
in the house to teach me anything. I
never knew what it was like to call someone “dad” or have a father throw his
arms around me and tell me he loved me.
Nevertheless my heavenly Father, who is all sufficient, has given me
spiritually what I have missed in the natural and I am truly blessed. As a child
the Assemblies of God helped to
feed me when I was hungry. That helped to save my body. However,
more importantly, they introduced me to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who
saved my soul for all eternity. Therefore, no matter where I go or what
church I attend, my heart will always be with the Assemblies of God. My
mother, brothers and sisters, all came to know the Lord as a result of the
Assemblies of God’s demonstration of pure religion by caring for one needful family. That was more than sixty-five years
ago. Although my mother and three of my siblings are now with the Lord,
the seed that the Assemblies of God planted in our hearts so long ago is still
there. And
that’s my opinion.
READ THE
BIBLE EVERY DAY
Larry Parker
March, 2014
[1]Assemblies
HOLINESS WITHOUT LEGALISM
When we began our new birth by asking Jesus to
forgive us of our sins and accepting Him as Lord of our life, we became a new
creation in Him. [1] We are no
longer, our own, and our bodies
became a temple of the Holy Spirit. [2] That is why
the Bible says, “…He who called
you is holy, you also be holy
in all your conduct, because
it
is written, "Be holy, for I am holy." [3] Therefore,
we must maintain the “temple of
the Holy Spirit” i.e. our bodies, in
holiness. However,
this holiness must
not come from legalism. Dr Charles
Stanley has said, “Legalism is the pressure of personal preferences that we
impose upon others as moral mandate[s] from God.” [4] Nevertheless,
we can have holiness without legalism.
The apostle Paul put it this way to the Galatians, “knowing
that a man is not justified by the works of the law [rules of men] but by faith
in Jesus Christ…”[5] Therefore,
we can obtain holiness through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The
“Good” Old Days
When
I was growing up in the forties and fifties, there were many mandates our
church leaders imposed on members in order for us to be holy, i.e. “saved.” Women of all ages were not allowed to wear
makeup of any kind. No fancy
hairdos. Slacks were forbidden (thinking
women were dressing as men). If
a woman
came to church wearing lipstick and earrings, it was assumed she was a sinner,
in need of salvation. Sleeveless
dresses
and blouses were out. No dancing! Even children, were not allowed to dance in
any way. I remember wanting to square
dance with other children in my school.
When I did, my mother told me I shouldn’t. She said to tell the teachers, “Dancing was
against my religion.” After
that, all I
could do was watch, enviously, from the side lines as the other children danced
with delight. Going to the movies
was
definitely a no-no. When we committed
any of these “sins” it was taught that we would go to hell if we died before we
repented. If Jesus came while we
were in
a movie house we would be left behind. We
were required to be solemn and “religious.” These (rules
of men) caused me to lose the joy of
my
salvation.
I enjoyed
the science fiction and “cowboy” movies of the era and have to admit I did disobey
some of the rules. I knew I couldn’t
always live according to them so I would backslide, and not even try to obey; even
doing things I knew were against the Bible rather than just men’s opinions. I thought, “I am ‘lost’ again, so I might as
well enjoy myself—for a while anyway.” Missing my relationship with the Lord, I
would buck up, repent and make another attempt to live under the mandates of my
church leaders. After trying again
to
obey the church’s restrictions I would fail.
And, once again I would repent and come back to follow the rules. This was a cycle I went through many times during
my early Christian life. My inconsistent
Christian life was the product of legalism.
Saved By Faith, Not Legalistic
Rules
I eventually
learned (from reading Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth) that I
did not lose my salvation every time I committed a sin. That’s when my
spiritual life changed dramatically. My
love for Jesus grew with the knowledge of the grace of the Lord.
I learned to work out my own salvation with
fear and trembling, [6]
and that I was justified by faith in Christ rather than works (obeying rules)
of the law. [7] I died to
the dictates of my church that I
might live for God. [8] I began to
live as Paul says in Galatians
2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but
Christ lives in me; and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave Himself for me.”
Legalism in our church was partly supported by a
misunderstanding of 1 Timothy 2:9 & 10, which says, “…women [must] adorn
themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided
hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, which is proper for women
professing godliness, with good works.”
The legalists focused on the words, “women adorn themselves …not with
braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing…” and forbad them. They were stealing our—as Galatians 2:4 says, “…liberty
which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us [unknowing to them] into
bondage…” However, Paul’s
subject in his
first letter to Timothy is revealed in chapter two, verse two, “…that we may
lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.”
He was not outright forbidding these things,
only that they must be used modestly.
Therefore, congregates ought not to be given a dress code but rather taught
that we should dress discreetly.
We Went Too Far In
the ensuing years, my denomination changed its legalistic views of salvation
and began to relax their rules. That
was
well and good. Dancing, movies,
makeup,
and clothing, of themselves, were not the problem. It was—what kind
of, dancing, movies, makeup, and clothing you participated
in. Unfortunately, it seems we have
gone
too far in the opposite direction. It’s
okay now to go to the movies. However,
there
are very few movies coming out of Hollywood today that a Christian should watch.
Nevertheless we are not cautioned
about avoiding
viewing contents that would soil our minds.
The gospel is so watered down today, sin is practically never mentioned.
As far as clothing is concerned; to put it bluntly,
there is too much “cleavage” seen from many women in our churches today. Personally, I don’t think a view of any
cleavage is appropriate for ladies who claim to love and follow Jesus (A
teenage boy doesn’t have to ask me why).
Skirts are so short I even had to avert my eyes from the platform one
Sunday morning when a women minister was sitting there with uncrossed legs.
Because we have become so permissive in our
relationship with Jesus, and each other, we no longer experience the presence
of the Holy Spirit, we once had in our meetings. Too many churches today have become as the
Laodiceans of Revelation, chapter three.
They are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot and are in danger of being
rejected by Christ.
A
Christian writer, Jackie Alnor, gives us a good explanation of what we need to
do about legalism. She said, “We
need to
strike the right balance in our church fellowships today, so that we don’t fall
into either error of license or legalism. We need to be accountable to one
another, confess our faults one to another, bear up one another’s burdens and
not be high-minded one against another. We
need to hear messages that encourage us to obey Christ and forsake sin, while
at the same time not pay attention to messages [rules] that take away our
freedom in Christ to make our own decisions in life as the Spirit leads us.”[9] This writer
is convinced that if inward
holiness would be emphasized by pastors and teachers, it will eventually result
in an outward appearance of a believer that is holy.
The Legalism Problem
We
have no problem with mandates from the Bible as stated (from the Ten
Commandments) by Jesus in Matthew 19:18 such as, “…'you shall not murder,' 'you
shall not commit adultery,' 'you shall not steal,' 'you shall not bear false
witness,'” however the problem comes from legalistic rules of men set down for
believers to follow. As an example,
in
Galatians 2:12-14 it was about who you eat with, and about Gentiles being
required to live as Jews. In the
book of
Acts, the problem was about circumcision.
Paul tells the Galatians that the apostle Peter was not straightforward
about the truth of the gospel, and was compelling Gentiles to live as Jews. He felt compelled to confront Peter on this
problem. [10] In Acts 15,
church leaders meet to settle the
legalistic problem brought about by certain men from Judea saying, “…Unless you
are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” [11]
The
result of the meeting, described in Acts, was a statement by the leaders explaining
that the believers were to follow only four regulations. [12] They were
to abstain from:
- things offered to idols
2.
[eating] blood
3. [eating] things strangled 4.
sexual immorality
The consensus was, “If you keep yourselves from
these, you will do well.” There
is no
biblical authority to add any more rules to that list. Most people don’t have a problem with the
first three abstentions; however, sexual immorality is a frequent problem in
the church that must be dealt with. The
reason
the Acts church leaders’ emphasized sexual immorality is the fact that it is a
sin against the believer’s body, which became a temple of the Holy Spirit when
we accepted Christ.
In his first letter to the Corinthians the apostle
Paul tells us we are to judge each
other when it comes to sexual misconduct. However, we do not have to be a judge of how
anyone should dress nor should we return to the legalistic dress codes of the
past. When a person comes to the
Lord, it
is important to teach him or her of the need to ask and receive the baptism of
the Holy Spirit. They must be encouraged
by spiritual leaders to seek and follow Jesus.
When asked, leaders may give an opinion on dress, but new believers must
be given time to be taught by the Holy Spirit; who produces a spirit of self-control.[13] Holiness
must start within the believer. We
must consult the Holy Spirit and listen to
Him when clothing ourselves. If
we would
do that, dress code problems would take care of themselves without anyone having
to follow a legalistic system.
And
that’s my opinion.
READ
THE BIBLE
EVERY DAY
Larry Parker
April, 2014
[1] See 2
Corinthians 5:17
[2] See 1
Corinthians 6:19
[4] Dr.
Charles Stanley, In Touch, Angel Network, 9/25/2011
[9] See http://rrrapostasyalert.blogspot.com/2011/05/apil-29-2011-show-leaglism-vslicense.html
[12] See
Acts 15:29 and 21:25
[13] See
Galatians 5:22 & 23
of God News, February 14, 2014
SIN—IN THE LIVES OF BELIEVERS
The
apostle John tells us, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us.”[i] That is because; as long as we are in
this
mortal flesh we all have a propensity to sin.
However, when we do sin, the apostle goes on to say in verse nine, “If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Therefore, when we sin we must repent and ask Jesus for His forgiveness.
We must stop the offence to God,
and go
back to serving Him.
However,
because some churches have deluded the gospel to a,
feel good about
yourself mentality, they have allowed sin to remain among their members.
It is a “leaven” that is spoiling a holy
church.[ii] It is part of a, “once saved always
saved”
doctrine, which does not give room for Hebrews 6:4-6 that says, “For it is impossible for those who
were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become
partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the
powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to
repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him
to an open shame.” And 1Corinhians
3:17,
“If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of
God is holy, which temple you are.” While it is true that we cannot
lose our salvation we can abdicate
it.
When
we are “saved” we still retain our free will.
Therefore we can, and will have, eternal salvation as long as we want it. However,
as shown in Hebrews six if we choose, we can reject whom we have previously received. The apostle Paul gives the
Hebrew church warning that if they break fellowship with Christ—by sinning and
not repenting— they could harden their hearts to the point of rejecting the
conviction of the Holy Spirit and discarding Jesus; from that they will not be
forgiven. Their names will be blotted
out of the Lamb’s Book of Life.[iii] That is the serious problem with the “feel
good” gospel!
Immoral
Behavior Must Not Be Tolerated
The
apostle Paul addresses the problem of sin in a believer. He says, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in
any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of
gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.” [iv] However, in 1 Corinthians, chapter five,
he
makes a hard point when he says, “we are not to keep company with brothers [or
sisters] in the Lord who are sexually immoral.” That is to say, if we point out to a fellow
believer he or she is living in a sexual immoral relationship and they refuse
to repent and stop it, we should put away this evil person and not even eat
with them. They are using their
body, a
temple of the Holy Spirit, as a place of sin and are in danger of God’s destruction.[v]
Putting
away such a person is hard discipline!
That is why the “feel good” teachers say, “Where is the love in that?” They go on to say, “We should associate
with
them and encourage them to continue coming to church, hoping our love will
cause them to come back to the Lord.” But
that is not what the Bible teaches. Paul
pronounces a very hard saying, which is, “deliver such a one to Satan for the
destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord
Jesus.”[vi] God’s Word also says:
Blows
[discipline] that hurt
cleanse away evil, As do stripes [punishment] the inner depths of the
heart (Proverbs 20:30). Foolishness is bound up
in the heart of a child [immature Christian]; The rod of correction
[discipline] will drive it far from him (Proverbs 22:15). Do not withhold correction
from
a child [immature Christian], For if you beat him with a rod [discipline
him], he will not die (Proverbs 23:13). The rod and rebuke give wisdom,
But a child [immature Christian] left to himself brings shame to his
[spiritual] mother [or father] (Proverbs 29:15). As many as I love, I rebuke and
chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent (Revelation 3:19). If you endure chastening,
God
deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not
chasten (Hebrews 12:7)? Discipline
of believers, is meant to bring the offenders back into fellowship with the
Lord and the church by motivating him or her to repent and turn from their
sin. They must be warned that even
though they will be forgiven they will still have to suffer the consequences of
their sin. We must follow scripture and
return to a biblically based discipline in our churches. If we will seek wisdom
from the Holy Spirit,
He will show us how we can have holiness without legalism. Then, we will be
able to, stand fast in the
liberty by which Christ has made us free, and will not be entangled again with
a yoke of bondage.[vii] The result will be the revival we have been
looking for that will sweep the “leaven” of sin from our churches. It
will begin the final phase of a
preparation of cleansing for the “Bride of Christ.” Then she will
become without spot or wrinkle,
ready for our soon coming King. Maranatha!
(O Lord Come!) And
that’s my opinion. Larry Parker May, 2014 READ THE BIBLE
EVERY DAY
[ii] See 1
Corinthians 5:6 & Galatians 5:9
[v]
1Corinthians 3:16-17, 19
RIGHTEOUSNESS—IN THE LIVES
OF BELIEVERS
In Romans 3:10 the apostle Paul,
says, “There is
none righteous, no, not one;” How then, can a believer be righteous? The
answer is found in Romans 5:19, “…by one Man's [Jesus]
obedience many will be made righteous.” When
we confess our sins and invite Jesus into our hearts, He washes our sins away
and gives us the righteousness He has with the Father.[i] In Romans 5:18 Paul puts it this way, “Therefore,
as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in
condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift [righteousness]
came to all
men, resulting in justification of life.”
Righteousness is obtained through faith.
“By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,
through which Abel obtained witness that he was righteous…”[ii] When we accept salvation, through Jesus, we become righteous.
A
Righteous Person Is Not Under the Law
Jesus fulfilled the law and
instituted a new
covenant of grace with His shed blood.[iii] Therefore, we become righteous, through
salvation, and are no longer under the law.
Jesus said, “…the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the
lawless and insubordinate… ”[iv]
And, “…I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to
repentance."[v] The apostle Paul tells us, “For by grace you have
been saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest anyone should boast.”[vi] However, we do not have a license to sin because
we are no longer under the law. Paul
says, “…Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly
not! How
shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”[vii]
Benefits
of the Righteous
Righteousness,
obtained through Jesus,
results in His eyes and ears being on us to hear our prayers.[viii] This fact is confirmed in John 9:31, “Now we
know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God
[follower of Jesus] and does His will, He hears him.” The book of Proverbs,
Chapters 10-29,
especially Chapters ten and eleven, give an impressive list of benefits to the
righteous such as the following: The thoughts of the
righteous are
right and their house will stand. The Lord hears their prayer and is a strong tower
that they can run to for protection. Through knowledge the
righteous will be
delivered. He is their everlasting foundation and they will
never be removed. Blessings are on the
head and memory of the righteous. They
will flourish like foliage and the Lord will not allow their soul to famish. There
is much treasure (not necessarily
money) in their house and they will be recompensed on the earth. Their fruit
is a tree of life; especially
when they win souls for the Lord. The righteous will come
through trouble; however, no grave
trouble will overtake them. Although they may fall, they will rise
again. Numerous scriptures inform us the
righteous will suffer for Jesus’ sake.[ix] However, Peter tells us, “…even if you should
suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed.” “…do not
be afraid … nor be troubled.”[x]
What Do The Righteous Do?
Born again Christians practice
righteousness. They are walking in God’s commandments and
are blameless.[xi] They confess their sins and pray for one
another that they may be healed. They
pray effective, fervent prayers—which avails much.[xii] Proverbs continues with: The righteous walk in their
integrity;
their children are blessed after them and their goodness shall be
repaid. They choose their friends
carefully and are kind to their animals.
They consider the cause of the poor and feed many. They give and do not
spare. They study how to answer—and their mouths and
lips are choice
silver; a well of life that knows what is acceptable to bring forth wisdom. Their
labor leads to life. Therefore,
their desire is only good and will
be granted. The righteous eat [the Word]
to the satisfying of their souls. They
are bold as lions; they sing and rejoice in the Lord.
Phony
Righteousness
In Acts 20:29 we are warned,
“…savage wolves will come in among you,
not sparing the flock.” Christians must be aware of people who pretend to
be righteous. We are to, “Beware of false prophets,
who come to
you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”[xiii] Jesus
said they, “…outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside … [they] are full of
hypocrisy and lawlessness.”[xiv] He also said, “… [they] trusted in themselves
that they were righteous, and despised others.”[xv] Some evil people, inspired by the devil send,
“…spies who pretended to be righteous…” into churches to stir up trouble.[xvi]
Finally
The righteous do not fear death;
they take refuge
in it, for they will go to heaven.[xvii] They will be given crowns and their righteous
acts will become robes of righteousness.[xviii] Isaiah 61:3 says, “…That they may be called
trees of
righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.” Jesus
declares, “…The
righteous will shine forth as the sun in the
kingdom of their Father.[xix]
The apostle Paul sums it up when he
tells Timothy, “Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me
only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”[xx] Maranatha! (O Lord Come!)
And that’s my
opinion.
Larry Parker
June, 2014
[i]
John 17:25, Revelations 16:5
[iii]
See Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24 & Hebrews 8:13
[v] See
Mark 2:17 & Luke 5:32
[ix]
Acts 5:41, 9:16, Romans 8:17, 1
Corinthians 12:26, 2 Corinthians 1:5-6, Galatians 5:11, 6:12, Philippians 1:29,
4:12,
1 Thessalonians 3:4, 2 Thessalonians 1:5, 1 Timothy 4:10, 2 Timothy 1:12, 2:9,
2:12, 3:12, 1 Peter 2:20,
3:14,
3:17, 4:16, 4:19, and Revelation 2:10.
[xi] Luke
1:6, 1John 2:29
[xviii]
Revelation 19:8 & Isaiah 61:10
THE
RAPTURE
The time when Jesus will return for us—gather us in the air and change our bodies from
mortal to immortal, glorified bodies—is
what we call, “The Rapture.” Last
November I wrote an opinion titled, “The Rapture and Daniel’s 70th
Week.” Because the timing of this event
is so important I will focus again on this subject. While we cannot know the
day or hour when
that event will occur;[1]
we can ask, “Will it happen before, in the middle of, or at the end of the
tribulation period?” We can
answer that question from the Bible.
We do that by referring to the following scriptures
which clearly talk about the rapture.
“Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all
be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For
the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall
be changed.”[2] Matthew 24:31 reveals, “…He [Jesus] will send
His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His
elect [the Church] from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. This
same fact is repeated in Mark 13:27, “…He
[Jesus] will send His angels, and gather together His elect [the Church] from
the four winds, from the farthest part of earth [people who are alive] to the
farthest part of heaven [people who have died before us].
However, we must understand
there is no Jewish
elect and Gentile elect nor are there a Jewish Church and or Gentile
Church. There is only one elect
Church! When Jesus talks about His elect
He is not talking about the Jews or Gentiles, He is talking about His Church. The rapture scriptures continue in
2Thssalonians 2:1 with the preface, “…concerning the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him…” Let’s read these scriptures in context.
The Context of the Rapture Scriptures
We
learn from 1Corithians 15:52, that when
the rapture occurs, at the sound of the last trumpet, we will be changed into
glorified bodies. Matthew 24:31 and Mark
13:27 both reveal the rapture as the subject of those chapters. When
we read the chapters from the beginning, with the rapture in mind, we find
additional, surprising, details. Thus, by
looking into the context of the rapture scriptures and the added specifics they
present; we can know where they fit in relation to the tribulation period.
In
Matthew 24:4 and Mark 13:5 Jesus
precedes His comments on the end times and the rapture with the statement,
“Take heed that no one deceives you.” In
his letter to the Thessalonians, the
apostle Paul begins his discussion on the rapture with the same warning, “Let
no one deceive you by any means.” Then
Paul reveals to us the fact that the rapture will not happen until after the Antichrist
is revealed.[3] And in 1Thessaloions 4:16-17 he says, “For the Lord
Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel,
and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we
who are alive and remain shall
be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And
thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
The scriptures are clearly
warning us
that we must take heed—so that we won’t be deceived as to the
timing of the rapture. Contrary to what
you may have been told there are still some prophases yet to be fulfilled,
before Jesus comes back for us. The
following verses tell us what prophases to look for:
Matthew 24:6-8, Mark 13:7-9: The
“beginning of sorrows” with wars and rumors of wars; earthquakes; famines and
troubles. These prophases have already
begun. Matthew 24:15, Mark 13:14: The
“Abomination of Desolation.” Matthew
24:21 Mark 13:19: The Great Tribulation. Matthew
24:29, Mark 13:24-25: After
that, the sun will be darkened; the moon will not give its light, and the stars
(asteroids) will fall. Matthew 24:30, Mark
13:26: Everyone
will see Jesus coming. Matthew 24:31, Mark
13:27: The Rapture
will occur after these signs. Conclusions The Abomination of Desolation occurs in the middle
of the seven-year tribulation period,[4]
followed by the Great Tribulation, which is Satan’s persecution of the saints (not
God’s wrath). The Antichrist’s fury on
God’s people will be cut short[5]
by the rapture. The sign that the
rapture is about to happen (we don’t know the day or time) is when the sun and
moon are darkened during a great meteor shower.
Suddenly, everyone will see Jesus appear in the sky with power and great
glory. With the sound of a great trumpet
blast Jesus’ angels will gather His Church in the rapture.
Because Jesus will be seen in
the heavens (sky) by
the saved, and sinners alike, Revelation 6:15-17 says, “And the kings of the
earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave
and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the
mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from
the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!’ For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is
able to stand?” That’s when God’s great
trumpet will sound and Jesus will send His angels to gather together those of
us who are looking for Him.
In
Matthew twenty-five, just after
Jesus talks about the rapture, He likens—coming to heaven—as a bride coming to be married. "Then the
kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went
out to meet the bridegroom.”[6] “…the bridegroom came, and those who were
ready went in with him to the wedding…. ”[7]
A
prophecy in Psalms 23:5 that says, “You
prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…” has never been
fulfilled. Could it be that God will
prepare the table of the marriage supper of the lamb, in the sky, in full view
of those who have been left behind in the rapture? It sounds like it could be
when I read
Revelation 19:6-9:
And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great
multitude [just raptured?], as the sound of many waters and as the sound of
mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let
us be glad and rejoice and give Him
glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself
ready." And to her it was granted
to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the
righteous acts of the saints. Then he
said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the
marriage supper of the Lamb!' “And he said to me, "These are the true
sayings of God.
God’s
Wrath Finally Released
The last seal on the scroll will be opened and
God’s wrath will be poured out on those who are left behind.[8] We can only conclude we have been deceived
concerning the rapture, which will happen
as God says, not as man says. The rapture will not
occur before the
seven-year tribulation period begins. The
Church will suffer the wrath of Satan during the Great Tribulation, which is
within the seven-year tribulation period.
This—persecution of the saints by Satan[9]—will be cut short by the rapture.
In
Hebrews eleven we read how some received the promise here and others in
heaven. In Revelations 12:11 we learn,
“…they overcame
him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did
not love their lives to the death.” Those who believe what the Bible says
and have drawn
close to Jesus before these events occur will have learned how to trust Him and
will not fear what is about to happen. May
Jesus find us sharing the gospel to the far corners of the world; obeying—The Last Commission.[10]
And
that’s my opinion.
Larry Parker
July, 2014
READ
THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
THE RESTRAINER AND THE RAPTURE
Jesus disciples asked Him, “Tell
us …what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the
age?"[1]
In His answer Jesus said, “…For then
there will be great tribulation, such as has
not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall
be.”[2] In Daniel 12:1b the man Jesus said, “…there
shall be a time of trouble, Such as never
was since there was a nation…”
write that it was
Jesus
speaking to Daniel, because in Daniel’s vision of the end times, the
messenger’s “… body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of
lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished
bronze in color, and the sound of his words
like the voice of a multitude.”[3] This is a description of Jesus! The
Bible says in Revelation 1:15, “His
[Jesus’] feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His
voice as the sound of many waters.” When
Jesus spoke to John in Revelation 14:1-2, His voice was, “…like the voice of
many waters…”[4]
In Matthew 24:21 Jesus tells
us, “…there will be great tribulation…” Then, in verse 31 He tells us the
rapture will follow (the great tribulation).
In Mark 13:24-27 Jesus says:
But in those days, after that tribulation,
the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars of heaven will fall,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and
glory. And then He will send His
angels, and gather together His elect from
the four winds, from the farthest part of earth [the living] to the farthest
part of heaven [the dead].[5]
Jesus says, “…He will send
His angels, and gather together His elect…”
He is using a similar phrase that Paul uses in 2 Thessalonians 2:1 when
he says, “our gathering together to Him [Jesus]. Both scriptures are clearly
referring to the
rapture.
e RC (religiously correct)
position of many in the Church today is—the Antichrist
will not be revealed until after the rapture of the Church and the tribulation
period begins. They mistakenly say this
seven year period won’t begin until the “restrainer” has been removed, and that
2 Thessalonians 2:7 proves it when it says, “For the mystery of lawlessness is
already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken
out of the way.”
Some pre-tribulation proponents
say the Church is the restrainer who is holding back sin from overtaking the
earth (others think he is the Holy Spirit).
Therefore, they determine, the Church must be raptured first. How has
the Church restrained sin in the
world? If you look back at the United
States over its 240 plus years of history, you must agree that sin has not been
held back; in fact, it has overtaken this country more than ever—and at a faster pace in our own lifetimes. Reality proves them wrong! Pre-trib. proponents cannot prove
that the
Church is the restrainer. The Church has
not restrained sin in the United
States. Consequently, the Church is not
the restrainer.
The RC position; that the Antichrist
will not be revealed until after the rapture of the Church, must, as all doctrine, be proved by scripture. However, it
can’t be because 2 Thessalonians
2:1-3 refutes that view:
Now, brethren, concerning
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our [the Church] gathering together to
Him [the rapture], we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled,
either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of
Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by
any means; for that Day [the
rapture] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and
the man of sin [the Antichrist] is revealed…
The scriptures quoted above inform
us the Church will not be taken away (raptured) until after the Antichrist has
been revealed. 2 Thessalonians 2:7 & 8 say the Antichrist
will not be revealed until after the restrainer is taken away:
For
the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will
do so until He is taken out of the way.
And then the lawless one will be revealed….
Paul is clearly telling the
Church of the Thessalonians, “Don’t be fooled, the rapture will not happen
until after the Antichrist has been
revealed.” I don’t see how anyone
can read it any other way. If the Church
is not raptured until after the Antichrist is revealed and the Antichrist
cannot be revealed until after the restrainer is taken out of the way, then we
must accept the fact that neither the Church nor the Holy Spirit can be the
restrainer. Therefore, scriptural logic
eliminates the Church and the Holy Spirit as the restrainer.
Who Is
The
Restrainer?
In the context of Daniel twelve
and Second Thessalonians Two, the time of trouble (great tribulation) came
after the archangel Michael “stood up.”
At
that time Michael shall stand up, The great prince who stands watch over
the sons of your people; And there shall be a time of trouble, Such as never
was since there was a nation, Even to that time… (Daniel 12:1).
And
now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For
the mystery of lawlessness is already at
work; only He [Michael] who now restrains will do so until He is taken
out of the way. And then the lawless one
will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and
destroy with the brightness of His coming
(2Thessalonians 2:6-7).
In 2 Thessalonians 2:6 & 7,
the word for restraining and restrains is translated from the same Greek word,
katechò, which means to hold down. When
Michael stands up he is no longer holding down (restraining) Satan from a full
scale attack on Israel. Therefore, I along
with others have concluded that the archangel Michael is the restrainer.
After Michael stands up Satan
will be free to attack Israel any way he wants, in addition to attacking the
Church. The scriptural fact is that the Antichrist
will not be revealed until after the restrainer (the chief angel Michael) is
taken out of the way during the seven-year
tribulation period. Therefore, the RC
position, that the rapture will happen before the tribulation period begins, is
incorrect. It is time to think out of
the RC box, while staying in the Bible.
We Must Learn How to Overcome
As
persecution of Christians increase in this country we must have the courage to
stand up for Jesus—even
if it means going to Jail, or worst. In
reading through First and Second Corinthians I find
that time after time when the Jews were faced with far superior forces and they
trusted in God rather than their own strength, God defended them and they won
the battle. If we will learn how to
trust Jesus for all things, we need not fear what is coming. God will protect
us! Nevertheless, we must have the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego who said to the Babylonian
king Nebuchadnezzar (who
was about to throw them into a furnace), “…our
God whom we serve is able
to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us
from your hand, O king. But if not, let
it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship
the gold image which you have set up.”[6] Revelations
12:11puts it this way, “And they overcame
him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and
they did not love their life even when faced with death.”[7]
That is how
we overcome.
Jesus says, “he who overcomes:”
- Shall eat from the tree
of life – Revelation 2:7
- Shall not be hurt by the
second death – Revelation 2:11
- Will be given some of the
hidden manna to eat – Revelation 2:17
- Will be given a new name
written on a white stone – Revelation
2:17
- Will be given power over
the nations – Revelation 2:26
But
best of all, in Revelations 3:21 Jesus says He will grant, those of us who
overcome, the right to sit with Him on His throne. WOW!
And that’s my opinion!
Larry
Parker
August, 2014
READ THE BIBLE EVERY DAY
[4] See also
Ezekiel 43:2,
[9]
Daniel 7:25, Revelation 13:7
[10] Matthew
28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:45-47, John 20:21
11 & 23, 4:7,11,12 and 2 John 1:5
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