The Father and the Son engaged in the mighty, wondrous work they had contemplated, of creating the world. The earth came forth from the hand of the Creator exceedingly beautiful. There were mountains, and hills, and plains; and interspersed among them were rivers and bodies of water. The earth was not one extensive plain, but the monotony of the scenery was broken by hills and mountains, not high and ragged as they now are, but regular and beautiful in shape. The bare, high rocks were never seen upon them, but lay beneath the surface, answering as bones to the earth. The waters were regularly dispersed. The hills, mountains, and very beautiful plains, were adorned with plants and flowers, and tall, majestic trees of every description, which were many times larger, and much more beautiful, than trees now are. The air was pure and healthful, and the earth seemed like a noble palace. Angels beheld and rejoiced at the wonderful and beautiful works of God.
After the earth was created, and the beasts upon it, the Father and Son carried out their purpose, which was designed before the fall of Satan, to make man in their own image. They had wrought together in the creation of the earth and every living thing upon it. And now God says to his Son, "Let us make man in our image." As Adam came forth from the hand of his Creator, he was of noble height, and of beautiful symmetry. He was more than twice as tall as men now living upon the earth, and was well proportioned. His features were perfect and beautiful. His complexion was neither white, nor sallow, but ruddy, glowing with the rich tint of health. Eve was not quite as tall as Adam. Her head reached a little above his shoulders. She, too, was noble--perfect in symmetry, and very beautiful.
This sinless pair wore no artificial garments. They were clothed with a covering of light and glory, such as the angels wear. While they lived in obedience to God, this circle of light enshrouded them. Although everything God had made was in the perfection of beauty, and there seemed nothing wanting upon the earth which God had created to make Adam and Eve happy, yet he manifested his great love to them by planting a garden especially for them. A portion of their time was to be occupied in the happy employment of dressing the garden, and a portion in receiving the visits of angels, listening to their instruction, and in happy meditation. Their labor was not wearisome, but pleasant and invigorating. This beautiful garden was to be their home, their special residence.
In this garden the Lord placed trees of every variety for usefulness and beauty. There were trees laden with luxuriant fruit, of rich fragrance, beautiful to the eye, and pleasant to the taste, designed of God to be food for the holy pair. There were the lovely vines which grew upright, laden with their burden of fruit, unlike anything man had seen since the fall. The fruit was very large, and of different colors; some nearly black, some purple, red, pink and light green. Everything was tastefully and gloriously arranged. In the midst of the garden stood the tree of life, the glory of which surpassed all other trees. Its fruit looked like apples of gold and silver, and was to perpetuate immortality. The leaves contained healing properties.
Adam was crowned king in Eden. To him was given dominion over every living thing that God had created. The Lord blessed Adam and Eve with intelligence such as He had not given to any other creature. He made Adam the rightful sovereign over all the works of His hands. Man, made in the divine image, could contemplate and appreciate the glorious works of God in nature
Very happy were the holy pair in Eden. Unlimited control was given them over every living thing. The lion and the lamb sported together peacefully and harmlessly around them, or slumbered at their feet. Birds of every variety of color and plumage flitted among the trees and flowers, and about Adam and Eve, while their mellow-toned music echoed among the trees in sweet accord to the praises of their Creator.
In the midst of the garden, near the tree of life, stood the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This tree was especially designed of God to be the pledge of their obedience, faith and love to him. Of this tree the Lord commanded our first parents not to eat, neither to touch it, lest they die. He told them that they might freely eat of all the trees in the garden except one; but if they ate of that tree they should surely die.
(On a side note – I just found out that supernova observed by the Chinese in 1054 AD happened in about 4000 BC. The light of course took that long to get here. I wonder if it had something to do with the war in heaven this chapter of the blog has already discussed?)
Showing posts with label Archangel Michael. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Archangel Michael. Show all posts
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Jesus as one man had achieved the impossible. He had obeyed in a world of sin, refuting the charge that God’s laws are too harsh. He had offered Himself as the sacrifice in man’s place, refuting the charge that God doesn’t care. And! By doing both He also refuted the charge that God is some sort of egomaniac demanding worship without anything in return. God Himself in the person of Christ showed just how much he really does care about His creatures. Philippians 2:5-11 says “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth; And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father. “
I once worked with a man I’ll call “Ned” who asked me “how can they say Christ was tempted in all things when He was never molested as a child?” It’s a worthwhile question to consider. Hebrews 4:5 does say “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Ned’s reasoning in part came from a lack of understanding as to the nature of the first and second deaths and many of the other truths we’ve been discussing. As wonderful as it is to read the four gospels and focus on Christ dying a gruesome, horrible, physical death, it’s in light of the overall background theme of the conflict between good and evil that has been going on in every generation that makes the cross of much greater value.
When I explained to him the meaning of the separation and the Father forsaking the Son on the cross it help him to understand better. As well, to be tempted in all points may not mean every actual sin. For instance it’s a sin to eat drink or smoke things that damage you body. Your health is a gift from God so alcohol, cigarettes and street drugs are not things true Christians will have anything to do with. Tobacco did not exist in Bible time except in the Americas, which had no contact with the Holy land at the time. To be tempted in all points really means every kind of sin. No one had fancy sports cars then. There would still have been the same prideful “because I can afford this and you can’t, I’m better than you” attitude in those who looked at their chariots the same way some people look at cars today. I’m sure you get my point.
If Jesus were only a normal man living a life of sin, His sin would have been enough to keep Him out of Heaven even if He did become perfect while on earth. He had to have lived a perfect life for the whole time He was here. If He was a perfect man, (but only a man) and died, He would have only been able to save one other man, and He would not have been able to get out of the grave Himself, because someone has to pay for sin. It is because He was God, therefore infinite, that He could make an infinite sacrifice and save as many as will come to Him. It is important to note that as God alone, He could not save man because it was man that sinned and man must die for sin. Therefore, for the infinite God to make this infinite sacrifice, the infinite God had to become a finite man. Only He truly has life in Himself because God is the creator and not a created being. All that life was wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ and offered on the cross to pay the debt mankind owes.
Consider the words of Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” No one can make themselves good enough for God. Think about what it would have been like though if humans could make themselves good enough for God? Then the Lord would owe us salvation, wouldn’t He? Who then would be the highest authority in the universe? Though it is not possible for us to make ourselves good enough for God, His plan of salvation had to play out the way it did in order to preserve His integrity and legal authority as King of the Universe.
And the cross also shows the pain sin has caused the heart of the Lord. With one member of the Trinity coming to earth with the approval of the other two, it was God’s way of acting out how much He hurts when any of us do anything wrong. Isaiah 49:15 and the first part of 16 says ....”Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”
Romans 3:26 speaks about how through the plan of salvation God is both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” at the same time. The penalty for sin was death, but because God took that penalty upon Himself man could live and have a second chance. Is that what you’d like to have? If you’ve never done so before I would invite you to ask Jesus to be you Saviour right now.
I once worked with a man I’ll call “Ned” who asked me “how can they say Christ was tempted in all things when He was never molested as a child?” It’s a worthwhile question to consider. Hebrews 4:5 does say “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Ned’s reasoning in part came from a lack of understanding as to the nature of the first and second deaths and many of the other truths we’ve been discussing. As wonderful as it is to read the four gospels and focus on Christ dying a gruesome, horrible, physical death, it’s in light of the overall background theme of the conflict between good and evil that has been going on in every generation that makes the cross of much greater value.
When I explained to him the meaning of the separation and the Father forsaking the Son on the cross it help him to understand better. As well, to be tempted in all points may not mean every actual sin. For instance it’s a sin to eat drink or smoke things that damage you body. Your health is a gift from God so alcohol, cigarettes and street drugs are not things true Christians will have anything to do with. Tobacco did not exist in Bible time except in the Americas, which had no contact with the Holy land at the time. To be tempted in all points really means every kind of sin. No one had fancy sports cars then. There would still have been the same prideful “because I can afford this and you can’t, I’m better than you” attitude in those who looked at their chariots the same way some people look at cars today. I’m sure you get my point.
If Jesus were only a normal man living a life of sin, His sin would have been enough to keep Him out of Heaven even if He did become perfect while on earth. He had to have lived a perfect life for the whole time He was here. If He was a perfect man, (but only a man) and died, He would have only been able to save one other man, and He would not have been able to get out of the grave Himself, because someone has to pay for sin. It is because He was God, therefore infinite, that He could make an infinite sacrifice and save as many as will come to Him. It is important to note that as God alone, He could not save man because it was man that sinned and man must die for sin. Therefore, for the infinite God to make this infinite sacrifice, the infinite God had to become a finite man. Only He truly has life in Himself because God is the creator and not a created being. All that life was wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ and offered on the cross to pay the debt mankind owes.
Consider the words of Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” No one can make themselves good enough for God. Think about what it would have been like though if humans could make themselves good enough for God? Then the Lord would owe us salvation, wouldn’t He? Who then would be the highest authority in the universe? Though it is not possible for us to make ourselves good enough for God, His plan of salvation had to play out the way it did in order to preserve His integrity and legal authority as King of the Universe.
And the cross also shows the pain sin has caused the heart of the Lord. With one member of the Trinity coming to earth with the approval of the other two, it was God’s way of acting out how much He hurts when any of us do anything wrong. Isaiah 49:15 and the first part of 16 says ....”Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”
Romans 3:26 speaks about how through the plan of salvation God is both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” at the same time. The penalty for sin was death, but because God took that penalty upon Himself man could live and have a second chance. Is that what you’d like to have? If you’ve never done so before I would invite you to ask Jesus to be you Saviour right now.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
So we have the Second Coming, then we have the delivering of the kingdom. They are two separate events that according to Revelation 20 are 1000 years apart. Take careful note how in many of these Bible references there are two separate things listed. What we have here is a breakdown of those events into what happens before and what happens after this 1000 year period. To see each of these texts in their original state without this breakdown please look them up in your own Bible.
HIS APPEARING (The Second Coming)
“Jesus Christ ... shall judge the quick“ 2 Timothy 4:1.
“they that are Christ’s at his coming” 1 Corinthians 15:23
“they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life“ John 5:29
“some to everlasting life” Daniel 12:2
“I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” John 14:3
“the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout ... the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord” 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17
“the great day of His wrath has come” Revelation 6:17
“He hath ... avenged the blood of His servants ...” Revelation 19:2
“The earth ... shall fall ... the LORD shall punish ... the kings of the earth.” Isaiah 24:20-22
“he that hath part in the first resurrection ... the second death hath no power” Revelation 20:6
“the Devil ... bound ... a thousand years” Revelation 20:2
HIS KINGDOM (Delivered to the Father)
“Jesus Christ ... shall judge ... the dead” 1 Timothy 4:1
“But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished” Revelation 20:5
“we shall judge angels” 1 Corinthians 6:3
“thrones ... they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them ... and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” Revelation 20:4
“the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and the dead were judged” Revelation 20:12
“some to shame and everlasting contempt” Daniel 12:2
“they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” John 5:29
“whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” Revelation 20:15
“This is the second death” Revelation 20:14
“the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven” Revelation 21:2
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them” Revelation 20:9
“Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God” 1 Corinthians 15:24
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men ... the former things are passed away” Revelation 21:3,4
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” Matthew 5:5
“for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away” Revelation 21:1
TO SUM UP
When Jesus returns He will destroy the living wicked, all who have rejected Him one way or the other. The living Saints, His true followers, will watch as He raises from the dead those who were His true followers from every other generation of human history. Both together are changed and fly off to Heaven for a period of 1000 years. An exception to this is a special resurrection for those who “pierced Him” (from Revelation 1:7).
This Millennium time has God’s people with Him judging the fallen angels and the wicked. In other words, He will explain why those He didn’t take to Heaven lost out on the chance He gave them. They made their own choices each and every one. Every single question will be answered, every single mystery will be solved. We’ll get a chance to see world history from His point of view. We’ll see when the angels, particularly our guardian angels, came to help us and offered help to the wicked that was turned down. The “bottomless pit” of Revelation 20:1-3 is obviously symbolic of the earth as a wasteland as the rest of the chapter clearly describes events that happen on the surface of the earth. Satan will be “bound” by a chain of circumstance, as he will have no one to lie to or tempt into sin. With all his people dead and God’s people all in Heaven, he’ll have nothing to do but think about the horrible things he has done in ruining this world.
At the end of this time period when the Heavenly City comes down to the earth as Revelation 21 speaks of, God raises all the wicked together, and this is the one point in history where every knee does bow before Jesus Christ in recognition of His justice as it says in Philippians 2:9-11. We’ll be satisfied with His justice, that He did try to reach those who are lost, and they will be shown where they had a chance to be saved and turned it down as well. Satan makes his final effort to deceive the wicked and one last time they show their contempt for God’s mercy by trying to attack the City as described in Revelation 20:7-10.
After all sin and sinners are completely wiped out of existence by that fire, God will make the earth anew and it will be the home of the saved forever. The earth will then be the capital of the entire universe and the door will be opened to a brave new world of exciting adventures for God’s people. There will always be something new to learn, always be something interesting to do. We will see Jesus face to face and we’ll always be reminded of the great love He has for us by seeing the scars in His hands, feet and side. Isaiah 66:22, 23 gives us this promise “’For as the new heavens and the new earth Which I will make shall remain before Me,’ says the LORD, ‘So shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass That from one New Moon to another, And from one Sabbath to another, All flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says the LORD.’” All flesh here includes the redeemed people of earth, the angels and every other intelligent being on every other planet.
HIS APPEARING (The Second Coming)
“Jesus Christ ... shall judge the quick“ 2 Timothy 4:1.
“they that are Christ’s at his coming” 1 Corinthians 15:23
“they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life“ John 5:29
“some to everlasting life” Daniel 12:2
“I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” John 14:3
“the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout ... the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord” 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17
“the great day of His wrath has come” Revelation 6:17
“He hath ... avenged the blood of His servants ...” Revelation 19:2
“The earth ... shall fall ... the LORD shall punish ... the kings of the earth.” Isaiah 24:20-22
“he that hath part in the first resurrection ... the second death hath no power” Revelation 20:6
“the Devil ... bound ... a thousand years” Revelation 20:2
HIS KINGDOM (Delivered to the Father)
“Jesus Christ ... shall judge ... the dead” 1 Timothy 4:1
“But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished” Revelation 20:5
“we shall judge angels” 1 Corinthians 6:3
“thrones ... they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them ... and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” Revelation 20:4
“the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and the dead were judged” Revelation 20:12
“some to shame and everlasting contempt” Daniel 12:2
“they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” John 5:29
“whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” Revelation 20:15
“This is the second death” Revelation 20:14
“the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven” Revelation 21:2
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them” Revelation 20:9
“Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God” 1 Corinthians 15:24
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men ... the former things are passed away” Revelation 21:3,4
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” Matthew 5:5
“for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away” Revelation 21:1
TO SUM UP
When Jesus returns He will destroy the living wicked, all who have rejected Him one way or the other. The living Saints, His true followers, will watch as He raises from the dead those who were His true followers from every other generation of human history. Both together are changed and fly off to Heaven for a period of 1000 years. An exception to this is a special resurrection for those who “pierced Him” (from Revelation 1:7).
This Millennium time has God’s people with Him judging the fallen angels and the wicked. In other words, He will explain why those He didn’t take to Heaven lost out on the chance He gave them. They made their own choices each and every one. Every single question will be answered, every single mystery will be solved. We’ll get a chance to see world history from His point of view. We’ll see when the angels, particularly our guardian angels, came to help us and offered help to the wicked that was turned down. The “bottomless pit” of Revelation 20:1-3 is obviously symbolic of the earth as a wasteland as the rest of the chapter clearly describes events that happen on the surface of the earth. Satan will be “bound” by a chain of circumstance, as he will have no one to lie to or tempt into sin. With all his people dead and God’s people all in Heaven, he’ll have nothing to do but think about the horrible things he has done in ruining this world.
At the end of this time period when the Heavenly City comes down to the earth as Revelation 21 speaks of, God raises all the wicked together, and this is the one point in history where every knee does bow before Jesus Christ in recognition of His justice as it says in Philippians 2:9-11. We’ll be satisfied with His justice, that He did try to reach those who are lost, and they will be shown where they had a chance to be saved and turned it down as well. Satan makes his final effort to deceive the wicked and one last time they show their contempt for God’s mercy by trying to attack the City as described in Revelation 20:7-10.
After all sin and sinners are completely wiped out of existence by that fire, God will make the earth anew and it will be the home of the saved forever. The earth will then be the capital of the entire universe and the door will be opened to a brave new world of exciting adventures for God’s people. There will always be something new to learn, always be something interesting to do. We will see Jesus face to face and we’ll always be reminded of the great love He has for us by seeing the scars in His hands, feet and side. Isaiah 66:22, 23 gives us this promise “’For as the new heavens and the new earth Which I will make shall remain before Me,’ says the LORD, ‘So shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass That from one New Moon to another, And from one Sabbath to another, All flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says the LORD.’” All flesh here includes the redeemed people of earth, the angels and every other intelligent being on every other planet.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
It was because the Jews, especially their priests, had misinterpreted the prophecies in light of an understanding that was for this world only that they rejected Him. He wasn’t the kind of Messiah they wanted. The same thing could easily happen again today as we near the Second Coming. There are so many false interpretations regarding end-time events that focus on political Israel instead of spiritual Israel. That’s a topic far beyond the scope of this blog however. The Lord did know this would happen. I recommend you take a look at Ezekiel chapter 34 in your spare time. It’s a prophecy about corrupt priests who lead His people astray and what God intends to do about the situation. Verses 11 and 12 say “For thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day.’”
In order to rightly understand the storyline of the Bible and prophecy in particular, you have to line up the really significant events and think beyond your own time period. Try to see the entire history of the world from God’s point of view essentially. You have Adam and Eve and the birth of sin, that’s the day in which Jesus was given to the world. Then the flood, as previously mentioned represents God showing the universe just how bad things would get under sin. We transition to Moses and the Ten Commandments then on to David. There were prophecies given through Abraham that Israel would have an earthly kingdom but the earthly success of the nation was only to provide a means for the spiritual success of the plan of salvation. Solomon of course frittered away the empire with the compromises he made for his many wives and false religion plagued the divided kingdoms. Then comes the captivity when Israel’s sovereignty was taken away. Ezekiel 21:25-27 speaks of the crown of Israel being overturned three times until the Messiah comes, who then keeps it forever. This happened; as the political sovereignty over God’s people was in Babylon’s hand when the prophecy was given and then overturned to Persia in the time of Nehemiah, and later to Greece, and finally Rome. This explains why Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world and why He said the kingdom of God is within you (John 18:36, Luke 17:21) The spiritual promise of being a new person with God’s love in your heart is always what the storyline of the Bible was really about.
Now we get beyond the time of Christ into the early church, how it went throughout the whole Roman empire sharing the truth. The falling away predicted by Paul came about as the pure church Jesus started became the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages. But God kept working bringing the truth back to light slowly through people like Martin Luther, the early Baptists and John Wesley. Now we transition into our time where the last of the truths of the Reformation, some of which are the secret keys we recently looked at, are being restored. When the full truth has gone to the whole world and everyone has had a chance to make a decision the end will come, but not without another counterfeit from Satan. This time the counterfeit will so closely resemble the truth that only those who really take God at His word and study it diligently will be able to tell the difference. (I’ll give you a hint, the true gospel has the true understanding of righteousness by faith, Martin Luther’s original point, while the false gospel doesn’t. With that true understanding comes a true understanding of how the Ten Commandments relate to practical Christian faith. With that eventually people will naturally ask themselves “why was the Sabbath changed?” The answer is that it wasn’t.)
Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15:23,24 and add in 2 Timothy 4:1 and then have an in-depth study into the next great events that will soon come to pass. “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.”
In order to rightly understand the storyline of the Bible and prophecy in particular, you have to line up the really significant events and think beyond your own time period. Try to see the entire history of the world from God’s point of view essentially. You have Adam and Eve and the birth of sin, that’s the day in which Jesus was given to the world. Then the flood, as previously mentioned represents God showing the universe just how bad things would get under sin. We transition to Moses and the Ten Commandments then on to David. There were prophecies given through Abraham that Israel would have an earthly kingdom but the earthly success of the nation was only to provide a means for the spiritual success of the plan of salvation. Solomon of course frittered away the empire with the compromises he made for his many wives and false religion plagued the divided kingdoms. Then comes the captivity when Israel’s sovereignty was taken away. Ezekiel 21:25-27 speaks of the crown of Israel being overturned three times until the Messiah comes, who then keeps it forever. This happened; as the political sovereignty over God’s people was in Babylon’s hand when the prophecy was given and then overturned to Persia in the time of Nehemiah, and later to Greece, and finally Rome. This explains why Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world and why He said the kingdom of God is within you (John 18:36, Luke 17:21) The spiritual promise of being a new person with God’s love in your heart is always what the storyline of the Bible was really about.
Now we get beyond the time of Christ into the early church, how it went throughout the whole Roman empire sharing the truth. The falling away predicted by Paul came about as the pure church Jesus started became the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages. But God kept working bringing the truth back to light slowly through people like Martin Luther, the early Baptists and John Wesley. Now we transition into our time where the last of the truths of the Reformation, some of which are the secret keys we recently looked at, are being restored. When the full truth has gone to the whole world and everyone has had a chance to make a decision the end will come, but not without another counterfeit from Satan. This time the counterfeit will so closely resemble the truth that only those who really take God at His word and study it diligently will be able to tell the difference. (I’ll give you a hint, the true gospel has the true understanding of righteousness by faith, Martin Luther’s original point, while the false gospel doesn’t. With that true understanding comes a true understanding of how the Ten Commandments relate to practical Christian faith. With that eventually people will naturally ask themselves “why was the Sabbath changed?” The answer is that it wasn’t.)
Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15:23,24 and add in 2 Timothy 4:1 and then have an in-depth study into the next great events that will soon come to pass. “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.”
Sunday, March 28, 2010
John 3:16 In-Depth POST ONE
You see them with their homemade signs at football and hockey games. All those signs say is “John 3:16”, which is probably the most beloved and well known verses in the entire 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.”
When did the Father give the Son to the world? Was it the day Jesus got baptized and started His three and a half year ministry? Was it that first Christmas when Jesus came into the world as the angels announced His birth to the shepherds? No, I submit to you that in light of what we have already seen of Jesus in the Old Testament, that He has been working to save this world from the very day it went astray. Let’s look at what happened that day from Genesis 3:15. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
This is the very first prophecy given that the Messiah would come and save the world. These words were spoken then by Jesus Himself. It was Jesus who went to the Garden that day to confront Adam and Eve. It’s been mentioned several times already that we are cut off from God the Father by sin. The Father is the highest authority in the entire universe. So He rules the universe and this world also. According to James 1:17, the Father gave us Jesus since He is the source of all that is good. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (Deuteronomy 6:4 shows there is a oneness to God yes, but there is also a hierarchy. Consider that the Spirit lives not to glorify himself but the Son in John 16:13,14 and that only the Father knows the date for the Second Coming, see Mark 13:32.)
When the Lord made humanity, it was His purpose to give us authority over this planet as is shown by Genesis 1:28 “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” Our first father, Adam would have been a king over us had he not sinned. In the genealogy of Christ Luke 3:38 uses the same title for Adam as Christ Himself bears “the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”
However, from the example of David, another king who symbolized the Messiah, this authority was under God. 1 Chronicles 28:6,7 says “Now He said to me, ‘It is your son Solomon who shall build My house and My courts; for I have chosen him to be My son, and I will be his Father. ‘Moreover I will establish his kingdom forever, if he is steadfast to observe My commandments and My judgments, as it is this day.’” In other words, God’s blessing comes tied to obedience. When Adam and Eve sinned, they forfeited that blessing.
This explains the significance of Job 2:1, which we looked at in the chapter on life on other planets. I’ll repeat the verse here “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD. These are the ‘Adams’ of the other planets. Adam himself would have had this role still had he not sinned. What he did in eating of the tree was to forfeit the world into Satan’s control. The devil now claimed the legal right to control it. That’s why the Bible calls him the “god of this world” and the “prince of the power of the air”. Jesus had to then act immediately in some fashion or Satan would have taken over.
Satan was able to claim this legal right to world domination through tempting our first parents into sin. Genesis 3 tells the story of how sin itself came into this world. I recommend you read the whole chapter. For now we’ll look at verse 17 and 21 “Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat of it:”’ ‘Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.’” "Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. We talked already in chapter two about how their sense of their own nakedness after they sinned came from the broken connection with God. They were not ashamed beforehand to be naked and now they were. Notice it is God who clothed them. This symbolizes the provisions He was already making for their salvation. The slain lamb was to represent the innocent One who would come and offer up His own life to cover their guilt. This is what allowed Adam and Eve to live on. Otherwise the Father would have destroyed them immediately.
When did the Father give the Son to the world? Was it the day Jesus got baptized and started His three and a half year ministry? Was it that first Christmas when Jesus came into the world as the angels announced His birth to the shepherds? No, I submit to you that in light of what we have already seen of Jesus in the Old Testament, that He has been working to save this world from the very day it went astray. Let’s look at what happened that day from Genesis 3:15. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
This is the very first prophecy given that the Messiah would come and save the world. These words were spoken then by Jesus Himself. It was Jesus who went to the Garden that day to confront Adam and Eve. It’s been mentioned several times already that we are cut off from God the Father by sin. The Father is the highest authority in the entire universe. So He rules the universe and this world also. According to James 1:17, the Father gave us Jesus since He is the source of all that is good. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (Deuteronomy 6:4 shows there is a oneness to God yes, but there is also a hierarchy. Consider that the Spirit lives not to glorify himself but the Son in John 16:13,14 and that only the Father knows the date for the Second Coming, see Mark 13:32.)
When the Lord made humanity, it was His purpose to give us authority over this planet as is shown by Genesis 1:28 “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” Our first father, Adam would have been a king over us had he not sinned. In the genealogy of Christ Luke 3:38 uses the same title for Adam as Christ Himself bears “the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”
However, from the example of David, another king who symbolized the Messiah, this authority was under God. 1 Chronicles 28:6,7 says “Now He said to me, ‘It is your son Solomon who shall build My house and My courts; for I have chosen him to be My son, and I will be his Father. ‘Moreover I will establish his kingdom forever, if he is steadfast to observe My commandments and My judgments, as it is this day.’” In other words, God’s blessing comes tied to obedience. When Adam and Eve sinned, they forfeited that blessing.
This explains the significance of Job 2:1, which we looked at in the chapter on life on other planets. I’ll repeat the verse here “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD. These are the ‘Adams’ of the other planets. Adam himself would have had this role still had he not sinned. What he did in eating of the tree was to forfeit the world into Satan’s control. The devil now claimed the legal right to control it. That’s why the Bible calls him the “god of this world” and the “prince of the power of the air”. Jesus had to then act immediately in some fashion or Satan would have taken over.
Satan was able to claim this legal right to world domination through tempting our first parents into sin. Genesis 3 tells the story of how sin itself came into this world. I recommend you read the whole chapter. For now we’ll look at verse 17 and 21 “Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat of it:”’ ‘Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.’” "Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. We talked already in chapter two about how their sense of their own nakedness after they sinned came from the broken connection with God. They were not ashamed beforehand to be naked and now they were. Notice it is God who clothed them. This symbolizes the provisions He was already making for their salvation. The slain lamb was to represent the innocent One who would come and offer up His own life to cover their guilt. This is what allowed Adam and Eve to live on. Otherwise the Father would have destroyed them immediately.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Though we have discussed it quite a bit from several angles in the first few chapters of this blog, there is great significance to the changes made in our world since the mid 1800’s. This also has a lot to do with what Jesus is doing now. You see the very first time anyone came to understand the significance of Daniel 8:14 and the cleansing of the Sanctuary was in the early 1800’s. This sparked a great religious revival as a movement rose up believing the cleansing was a sign of the end of the world. The book “Daniel and the Revelation” by Uriah Smith, a man who was there, puts it this way on page 386:
The great religious awakening in the early part of the nineteenth century which resulted from a study of the prophecies, culminated in this advent movement. Men from all denominations were convinced that the coming of Christ was near. As they came out of the various churches, they left sectarian names and feelings behind, and every heart beat in unison as all joined to give the alarm to the churches and to the world, and pointed to the coming of the Son of man as the believer's true hope. Selfishness and covetousness were laid aside, and a spirit of consecration and sacrifice was cherished. The Spirit of God was with every true believer, and his praise upon every tongue. Those who were not in that movement cannot fully realize how great was the searching of heart, the consecration to God, the peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and the pure, fervent love for one another which true believers enjoyed.
From The Great Controversy by Ellen White, page 611 “The advent movement of 1840-44 was a glorious manifestation of the power of God; the first angel's message was carried to every missionary station in the world, and in some countries there was the greatest religious interest which has been witnessed in any land since the Reformation of the sixteenth century”.
This revival came about as a result of what’s known in history as “The Second Great Awakening”. After Napoleon took the Pope prisoner in 1798 the political power of the Catholic Church was broken, though persecution had already been waning for decades. This combined with the failure of the French Revolution gave great confidence to Protestant Bible scholars. The Bible was no longer illegal for the common man to possess and people began studying it more earnestly as the various Bible societies spread God’s word.
This ‘Advent’ movement keyed in on Daniel 8:14 and the cleansing of the Sanctuary as we have discussed above. Daniel and the Revelation, page 635 elaborates further.
As early as 1831, William Miller, of Low Hampton, New York, by an earnest and consistent study of the prophecies, was led to the conclusion that the gospel age was near its close. He placed the termination, which he thought would occur at the end of the prophetic periods, about the year 1843. This date was afterward extended to the autumn of 1844. … When he began to promulgate his views, they met with general favor, and were followed by great religious awakenings in different parts of the land.
Soon a multitude of colaborers gathered around his standard, among whom may be mentioned such men as F. G. Brown, Charles Fitch, Josiah Litch, J. V. Himes, and others, who were then eminent for piety, and men of influence in the religious world. The period marked by the years 1840-1844 was one of intense activity and great progress in this work.
Now remember this happened when 1844 was still in the future. Their critical mistake came from the fact that they didn’t really know what the Sanctuary was and assumed its cleansing meant the end of the world when Jesus will return and cleanse the earth. As Uriah Smith discussed there was more than a year of approximate guesses that came and went from 1843 to 1844. The last possible day fro Jesus to return was October 22, 1844. (I’ll explain how they arrived at these dates in the next chapter.) When He didn’t come the event was written up in history as “The Great Disappointment”.
Why did revival go wrong? They were injecting their own opinions into the Bible rather than letting God’s word speak for itself. However the Lord knew this would happen. The cleansing reference of verse 14 is preceded by Daniel 8:13 “Then I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said to that certain one who was speaking, ‘How long will the vision be, concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled under foot?’” Daniel 8:13 has two saints talking. It’s the second saint who is asking the first the question the question of when? The first saint answers the second only on that question of when. The second saint is left to learn the meaning through further study later. Though the first movement fell apart, those who were willing to hang on after being so broken and disappointed were given many great rewards. God worked in several ways to raise up a new movement. As this happened, those who studied their Bibles saying in their hearts ‘where did we go wrong?’ found many other important truths missing from the theology of the mainstream church of the day. These people found out the very truths we have discussed here among others.
They are now known as the Seventh-day Adventists. ‘Adventist’ from the understanding that Jesus will soon return to end this world and begin a new one and ‘Seventh-day’ from the Bible fact that the original Sabbath has never been changed in God’s eyes. Sunday is not the true Sabbath, but we’ll leave that discussion for another day.
Jesus gave us the truth when He came to earth the first time. Indeed as John 14:6 says, He is the “way, truth and the life”. The early church began with the benefit of that truth but soon fell away from it over the course of a few centuries. Then God worked again to bring His people out of the Dark Ages. First there was Martin Luther, the man we all owe our freedom to today. Then wave after wave of Reformers came along from the Baptists to Wesley and the Methodists, each one adding a piece as they were lead to study the Bible. Ultimately though, the 14th century mindset still had its influence.
The great religious awakening in the early part of the nineteenth century which resulted from a study of the prophecies, culminated in this advent movement. Men from all denominations were convinced that the coming of Christ was near. As they came out of the various churches, they left sectarian names and feelings behind, and every heart beat in unison as all joined to give the alarm to the churches and to the world, and pointed to the coming of the Son of man as the believer's true hope. Selfishness and covetousness were laid aside, and a spirit of consecration and sacrifice was cherished. The Spirit of God was with every true believer, and his praise upon every tongue. Those who were not in that movement cannot fully realize how great was the searching of heart, the consecration to God, the peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and the pure, fervent love for one another which true believers enjoyed.
From The Great Controversy by Ellen White, page 611 “The advent movement of 1840-44 was a glorious manifestation of the power of God; the first angel's message was carried to every missionary station in the world, and in some countries there was the greatest religious interest which has been witnessed in any land since the Reformation of the sixteenth century”.
This revival came about as a result of what’s known in history as “The Second Great Awakening”. After Napoleon took the Pope prisoner in 1798 the political power of the Catholic Church was broken, though persecution had already been waning for decades. This combined with the failure of the French Revolution gave great confidence to Protestant Bible scholars. The Bible was no longer illegal for the common man to possess and people began studying it more earnestly as the various Bible societies spread God’s word.
This ‘Advent’ movement keyed in on Daniel 8:14 and the cleansing of the Sanctuary as we have discussed above. Daniel and the Revelation, page 635 elaborates further.
As early as 1831, William Miller, of Low Hampton, New York, by an earnest and consistent study of the prophecies, was led to the conclusion that the gospel age was near its close. He placed the termination, which he thought would occur at the end of the prophetic periods, about the year 1843. This date was afterward extended to the autumn of 1844. … When he began to promulgate his views, they met with general favor, and were followed by great religious awakenings in different parts of the land.
Soon a multitude of colaborers gathered around his standard, among whom may be mentioned such men as F. G. Brown, Charles Fitch, Josiah Litch, J. V. Himes, and others, who were then eminent for piety, and men of influence in the religious world. The period marked by the years 1840-1844 was one of intense activity and great progress in this work.
Now remember this happened when 1844 was still in the future. Their critical mistake came from the fact that they didn’t really know what the Sanctuary was and assumed its cleansing meant the end of the world when Jesus will return and cleanse the earth. As Uriah Smith discussed there was more than a year of approximate guesses that came and went from 1843 to 1844. The last possible day fro Jesus to return was October 22, 1844. (I’ll explain how they arrived at these dates in the next chapter.) When He didn’t come the event was written up in history as “The Great Disappointment”.
Why did revival go wrong? They were injecting their own opinions into the Bible rather than letting God’s word speak for itself. However the Lord knew this would happen. The cleansing reference of verse 14 is preceded by Daniel 8:13 “Then I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said to that certain one who was speaking, ‘How long will the vision be, concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled under foot?’” Daniel 8:13 has two saints talking. It’s the second saint who is asking the first the question the question of when? The first saint answers the second only on that question of when. The second saint is left to learn the meaning through further study later. Though the first movement fell apart, those who were willing to hang on after being so broken and disappointed were given many great rewards. God worked in several ways to raise up a new movement. As this happened, those who studied their Bibles saying in their hearts ‘where did we go wrong?’ found many other important truths missing from the theology of the mainstream church of the day. These people found out the very truths we have discussed here among others.
They are now known as the Seventh-day Adventists. ‘Adventist’ from the understanding that Jesus will soon return to end this world and begin a new one and ‘Seventh-day’ from the Bible fact that the original Sabbath has never been changed in God’s eyes. Sunday is not the true Sabbath, but we’ll leave that discussion for another day.
Jesus gave us the truth when He came to earth the first time. Indeed as John 14:6 says, He is the “way, truth and the life”. The early church began with the benefit of that truth but soon fell away from it over the course of a few centuries. Then God worked again to bring His people out of the Dark Ages. First there was Martin Luther, the man we all owe our freedom to today. Then wave after wave of Reformers came along from the Baptists to Wesley and the Methodists, each one adding a piece as they were lead to study the Bible. Ultimately though, the 14th century mindset still had its influence.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Jesus went into the original Sanctuary when He went back to Heaven after rising from the dead and appearing to His disciples. What He is doing now according to the Bible is going through the real cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary. He is applying the promised forgiveness from the cross to the legal record of those who accepted it, those who were willing to afflict their souls.
Think about it this way, God knows all things right? None of His creatures do though. However many billions of people who have lived here on earth have committed however many trillions or quadrillions of sins through world history and it’s all written down in these books! Imagine you are not an earthling but a being from another planet. You have lived through countless eons of time in perfect harmony as a result of your world’s complete submission to the Lord’s will all this time. Then you saw how Lucifer, who was once the highest angel, corrupted himself and was cast out of heaven for it. After that Adam and Eve started the rebellion here as well. You have seen every single rape, theft and murder even though these things are completely unheard of on your planet.
You then watched Jesus, Whom you knew as your Royal Commander, come down to this world, live a life of suffering and humiliation; and finally be crucified at the very hands of the ones He was trying to save. Now even though you saw how much God worked to save humanity through every generation culminating in Jesus’ death and resurrection, you might not yet feel guaranteed that the people He’s about to admit back into the family of the universe can actually be trusted not to do it all again at some point in the future. This is especially true as you see the majority of the world’s population trying in its own way to achieve that place. Wouldn’t you want a guarantee?
That the promised assurance is being given now is shown by Daniel 7:26 and 27 ‘”But the court shall be seated, And they shall take away his dominion, To consume and destroy it forever.Then the kingdom and dominion, And the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, Shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.” The dominion taken away here is that of Satan and his man on earth, the antichrist. The dominion given is the earth. Jesus is proven right here in all His decisions regarding whom to save and whom not to. He now has he legal right to return to this world and rescue His people.
WHAT JESUS IS DOING NOW BY LOOKING AT THE RECORD IN SUCH FINE DETAIL IS TO PROVE TO THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE THAT THE ONES HE WILL SOON RESUCE FROM THIS WORLD REALLY WERE SORRY FOR EVERY WRONG THING THEY EVER DID AND REALLY DID SUBMIT TO GOD COMPLETELY! There is another level to the judgement where before God curses those who weren’t sorry with hellfire He explains to His people why He’s going to do it. However, that’s a topic for the next chapter.
Really the Lord Himself is the One on trial here. The questions the whole universe needed to have answered every since Satan rebelled are simply: “Is God fair?” “Does He really have our best interests at heart when He demands our complete loyalty?” and “Is His way really the only way for the universe to coexist in peace?”
Put all three of these secret keys together and you will realize that heaven is in the same physical reality as this world. There is no such thing as a ‘spirit world’ as someone with a 14thcentury mindset would say. And modern minded people who say heaven is in some sort of other dimension are really saying the same thing in pseudo-scientific terms. This understanding, this fullness of truth will protect one from the errors of the modern view of evolution and the errors of the 14th century mindset already discussed here in this blog. Most Christians who misunderstand certain key Bible passages such as the creation story do so because they have clung to errors on these important topics. Their view of death is that you become a ghost as soon as you die and that you face the judgement alone instantaneously thereafter. Just as their view of the universe was once earth centered and therefore human centered, so their view here is as well.
When you die you fall asleep and don’t go anywhere. People aren’t in heaven yet enmasse. Jesus, His angels and every other being out there are as real as the desk you are sitting at right now. Angels are not ghosts they are physical beings, we are simply being prevented from seeing them. They’ve been working through every generation of history to help people in various ways. And they’ve seen every single If you had a space ship fast enough and knew where to go, you could fly to what Revelation 21 calls the New Jerusalem, what Paul called the ‘third heaven’ God’s Holy city with its Sanctuary itself, right now.
Think about it this way, God knows all things right? None of His creatures do though. However many billions of people who have lived here on earth have committed however many trillions or quadrillions of sins through world history and it’s all written down in these books! Imagine you are not an earthling but a being from another planet. You have lived through countless eons of time in perfect harmony as a result of your world’s complete submission to the Lord’s will all this time. Then you saw how Lucifer, who was once the highest angel, corrupted himself and was cast out of heaven for it. After that Adam and Eve started the rebellion here as well. You have seen every single rape, theft and murder even though these things are completely unheard of on your planet.
You then watched Jesus, Whom you knew as your Royal Commander, come down to this world, live a life of suffering and humiliation; and finally be crucified at the very hands of the ones He was trying to save. Now even though you saw how much God worked to save humanity through every generation culminating in Jesus’ death and resurrection, you might not yet feel guaranteed that the people He’s about to admit back into the family of the universe can actually be trusted not to do it all again at some point in the future. This is especially true as you see the majority of the world’s population trying in its own way to achieve that place. Wouldn’t you want a guarantee?
That the promised assurance is being given now is shown by Daniel 7:26 and 27 ‘”But the court shall be seated, And they shall take away his dominion, To consume and destroy it forever.Then the kingdom and dominion, And the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, Shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.” The dominion taken away here is that of Satan and his man on earth, the antichrist. The dominion given is the earth. Jesus is proven right here in all His decisions regarding whom to save and whom not to. He now has he legal right to return to this world and rescue His people.
WHAT JESUS IS DOING NOW BY LOOKING AT THE RECORD IN SUCH FINE DETAIL IS TO PROVE TO THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE THAT THE ONES HE WILL SOON RESUCE FROM THIS WORLD REALLY WERE SORRY FOR EVERY WRONG THING THEY EVER DID AND REALLY DID SUBMIT TO GOD COMPLETELY! There is another level to the judgement where before God curses those who weren’t sorry with hellfire He explains to His people why He’s going to do it. However, that’s a topic for the next chapter.
Really the Lord Himself is the One on trial here. The questions the whole universe needed to have answered every since Satan rebelled are simply: “Is God fair?” “Does He really have our best interests at heart when He demands our complete loyalty?” and “Is His way really the only way for the universe to coexist in peace?”
Put all three of these secret keys together and you will realize that heaven is in the same physical reality as this world. There is no such thing as a ‘spirit world’ as someone with a 14thcentury mindset would say. And modern minded people who say heaven is in some sort of other dimension are really saying the same thing in pseudo-scientific terms. This understanding, this fullness of truth will protect one from the errors of the modern view of evolution and the errors of the 14th century mindset already discussed here in this blog. Most Christians who misunderstand certain key Bible passages such as the creation story do so because they have clung to errors on these important topics. Their view of death is that you become a ghost as soon as you die and that you face the judgement alone instantaneously thereafter. Just as their view of the universe was once earth centered and therefore human centered, so their view here is as well.
When you die you fall asleep and don’t go anywhere. People aren’t in heaven yet enmasse. Jesus, His angels and every other being out there are as real as the desk you are sitting at right now. Angels are not ghosts they are physical beings, we are simply being prevented from seeing them. They’ve been working through every generation of history to help people in various ways. And they’ve seen every single If you had a space ship fast enough and knew where to go, you could fly to what Revelation 21 calls the New Jerusalem, what Paul called the ‘third heaven’ God’s Holy city with its Sanctuary itself, right now.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
This leads us to secret key number three, in which we look at what exactly Jesus is doing up in heaven right now in a very brief fashion. Jesus went to heaven as a real person in a real body not as a ghost. Therefore He’s up there actually doing something. What is it? We get a clue from Acts 3:19-21 “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” This quote is from the King James Version. Notice carefully that forgiveness does not come instantly, but at a later date, the “times of refreshing.” This is very important. Jesus does offer us peace now when we turn from sin. However, in light of this verse the offer comes in the form of an assurance, a promise for the future.
Allow me to illustrate the point with this example. Forgiveness is like buying a TV and paying for it with a cheque. You take home the TV from the store that day but the cheque takes another ten days to clear the bank. A cheque is accepted as good as cash but it isn’t actually cash. It’s a promissory note in essence. Well, every time you do something good an angel writes it down. Every time you do something bad, an angel writes it down. The Bible says that at some point, God is going to look at these lists. Though we have the promise of His forgiveness now if we will change our wicked ways and accept His death on the cross, the ‘paperwork’ won’t be complete until this ‘times of refreshing’ is.
Please take careful note as well of the order of events listed in that text. The times of refreshing takes place shortly before the Second Coming of Christ. First the refreshing comes, then Jesus returns, and finally the ‘restitution of all things’, which refers to God completely finishing the conflict between good and evil and making this world into a paradise again for all eternity. Revelation 14:7, a prophetic message for the last generation concurs by saying. “… Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come …” This verse is not saying the judgement will come, it is saying it has come. This is present tense English here.
The same idea is expressed in Daniel 8:14”And he said to me, ‘For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.’” The exact nature of this time of refreshing is actually one of the most difficult theological concepts to grasp. To really understand this takes quite a lot of study so I will only give a brief overview here. When the Lord established Israel as a nation He instituted their Sanctuary and priesthood through all the laws He gave to Moses. The various rituals the Israelites were to participate in were all designed to teach symbolic lessons of what God would do to save the world through Jesus. There was a daily sacrifice of an innocent, pure lamb. This taught we all need Christ on a continual basis. Then there was a yearly calendar of religious holidays grouped into spring and fall. These taught the lesson of what would take place in the development of God’s plan of salvation through world history. The spring festivals taught lessons on the First Coming of Christ while the ones in the fall were designed to teach us about things near to the Second Coming of Jesus, the end of this world and the beginning of God’s new earth, a reestablished Garden of Eden for all His friends.
When an individual committed a sin and needed to go to the Temple and sacrifice, there was a specific process as to how it was done. First, the person in question confessed the sin over the lamb and killed it. Now the animal had symbolically taken the sin away. This was like the buying of the TV with the cheque. However, the process was not done at this point! The priest then took the blood of the lamb into the first main room of the Sanctuary, called the ‘Holy Place’. The sin was there symbolically for the rest of the year and day by day more and more sins symbolically ‘built up’, shall we say. Then once a year on the “Day of Atonement” the High Priest went into the inner chamber of the Sanctuary, called the ‘Most Holy place’. This was a special ritual in which one single, complete atonement was made for all the sins that the people had committed that year. The Sanctuary was now cleansed, or ‘refreshed’. The cheque had cleared the bank that day. While this was happening inside the temple the people were required to afflict their souls. It was a day for careful searching of heart to make sure everything was indeed right between each individual and the Lord. God promised He would forgive their sins and by accepting the special sacrifice of the High Priest, He made good on His promise.
According to Hebrews 8:1, 2 the earthly Sanctuary was only a copy of the original in Heaven. “Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.” To get even more information as to what this is we go to Daniel 7. Verses 9 and 10 say “I watched till thrones were put in place, And the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, And the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, Its wheels a burning fire; A fiery stream issued And came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, And the books were opened.”
So the Sanctuary in Heaven is the throne room itself where God the Father appears here with 100 million angels. This room is vastly beyond anything humans can imagine (as another Bible /science fiction parallel, an attempt to imagine it is essentially what the Senate is in Star Wars). This cleansing time is a time of judgement. Verses 13 and 14 continue with “I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed.”
Allow me to illustrate the point with this example. Forgiveness is like buying a TV and paying for it with a cheque. You take home the TV from the store that day but the cheque takes another ten days to clear the bank. A cheque is accepted as good as cash but it isn’t actually cash. It’s a promissory note in essence. Well, every time you do something good an angel writes it down. Every time you do something bad, an angel writes it down. The Bible says that at some point, God is going to look at these lists. Though we have the promise of His forgiveness now if we will change our wicked ways and accept His death on the cross, the ‘paperwork’ won’t be complete until this ‘times of refreshing’ is.
Please take careful note as well of the order of events listed in that text. The times of refreshing takes place shortly before the Second Coming of Christ. First the refreshing comes, then Jesus returns, and finally the ‘restitution of all things’, which refers to God completely finishing the conflict between good and evil and making this world into a paradise again for all eternity. Revelation 14:7, a prophetic message for the last generation concurs by saying. “… Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come …” This verse is not saying the judgement will come, it is saying it has come. This is present tense English here.
The same idea is expressed in Daniel 8:14”And he said to me, ‘For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.’” The exact nature of this time of refreshing is actually one of the most difficult theological concepts to grasp. To really understand this takes quite a lot of study so I will only give a brief overview here. When the Lord established Israel as a nation He instituted their Sanctuary and priesthood through all the laws He gave to Moses. The various rituals the Israelites were to participate in were all designed to teach symbolic lessons of what God would do to save the world through Jesus. There was a daily sacrifice of an innocent, pure lamb. This taught we all need Christ on a continual basis. Then there was a yearly calendar of religious holidays grouped into spring and fall. These taught the lesson of what would take place in the development of God’s plan of salvation through world history. The spring festivals taught lessons on the First Coming of Christ while the ones in the fall were designed to teach us about things near to the Second Coming of Jesus, the end of this world and the beginning of God’s new earth, a reestablished Garden of Eden for all His friends.
When an individual committed a sin and needed to go to the Temple and sacrifice, there was a specific process as to how it was done. First, the person in question confessed the sin over the lamb and killed it. Now the animal had symbolically taken the sin away. This was like the buying of the TV with the cheque. However, the process was not done at this point! The priest then took the blood of the lamb into the first main room of the Sanctuary, called the ‘Holy Place’. The sin was there symbolically for the rest of the year and day by day more and more sins symbolically ‘built up’, shall we say. Then once a year on the “Day of Atonement” the High Priest went into the inner chamber of the Sanctuary, called the ‘Most Holy place’. This was a special ritual in which one single, complete atonement was made for all the sins that the people had committed that year. The Sanctuary was now cleansed, or ‘refreshed’. The cheque had cleared the bank that day. While this was happening inside the temple the people were required to afflict their souls. It was a day for careful searching of heart to make sure everything was indeed right between each individual and the Lord. God promised He would forgive their sins and by accepting the special sacrifice of the High Priest, He made good on His promise.
According to Hebrews 8:1, 2 the earthly Sanctuary was only a copy of the original in Heaven. “Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.” To get even more information as to what this is we go to Daniel 7. Verses 9 and 10 say “I watched till thrones were put in place, And the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, And the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, Its wheels a burning fire; A fiery stream issued And came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, And the books were opened.”
So the Sanctuary in Heaven is the throne room itself where God the Father appears here with 100 million angels. This room is vastly beyond anything humans can imagine (as another Bible /science fiction parallel, an attempt to imagine it is essentially what the Senate is in Star Wars). This cleansing time is a time of judgement. Verses 13 and 14 continue with “I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed.”
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Secret key two then is the fact that Jesus did exist before being born here on earth. The theology of most Christian Churches emphasizes His time here and that He went off to heaven after rising from the dead. Though they will speak of the over three hundred prophecies in the Old Testament that foretell Christ’s coming, they don’t always have a clear handle on the fact that he is mentioned in the Old Testament as being present. He simply hasn’t used the name “Jesus Christ” yet.
Most people today have seen Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments”, starring Charlton Heston. It’s on TV practically every Easter. If you’ve seen the film or any other Bible movie on Moses, you’ll be familiar with the story of how God appeared to Moses and spoke to him out of a burning bush. Yet look very carefully at the actual reference from Exodus 3:2-6.
And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.
Notice it was an “Angel” who talked with Moses, yet He is clearly God. This is why of all the modern English Bibles I could have quoted form in this blog, I chose the New King James Version. Wherever in the Old Testament of the NKJV Bible you see “Angel”, that’s Christ. There are 59 such references with another 2 that use the ‘angel’ asnd then in the margin have ‘Angel’.
This maybe a hard concept to grasp as it’s so easy to conjure up old pictures of angels being winged human–like creatures who may have great power and strength, but are clearly not God. The misunderstanding comes from the word itself. It simply means “messenger” According to Isaiah 59:1, 2, we are cut off from God the Father by sin. Therefore God the Son comes as His messenger, or Angel.
Similarly in Joshua 5:15 He is “Commander of the Lord’s Host”. We see the same message given to Joshua here to remove his footwear. Therefore it’s the same being giving the message as the One who appeared to Moses. He is Holy and therefore no ordinary angel. “Then the Commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.”
Here are a few extra texts to look up if you feel so inclined. In Judges 13:20-22 Samson’s parents offered a sacrifice and the Angel accepted this worship. Ordinary angels don’t do this, see Revelation 19:10. Genesis 19:24 is from the story Sodom and Gomorrah. Read the whole story and you will see three beings from heaven who appear to Abraham. Two of whom are angels, one of whom is God. Here we have two references to “the Lord”. One “Lord” is on earth calling the judgements down and the other “Lord” is in Heaven raining down those judgements. Jesus must be one while God the Father is the other.
Daniel 10:13 calls Michael “one of the chief princes”. A prince is a royal term. The Hebrew word in verse 13 for ‘chief princes’ actually refers to the Trinity. So Michael is one of the Trinity! Verse 21 calls Him “your prince”. Our Lord and Saviour has over three hundred names in the scriptures. Some are titles, others are descriptions. None of them take away from His divinity. This includes the title of ‘Michael’.
I’ll have a little more to say on this in the chapter “John 3:16 in-depth”. For now the important thing is the effect this truth can have one your understanding of who Jesus is. He is not a mortal man who was deified by later generations of believers. That would make the gospels useless. Indeed the whole Bible would be pointless. No, Jesus is God. And God became a man in the early first century, AD to die on the cross for our sins. That one wonderful weekend was the end all and be all of the plan of salvation in one sense; and yet in another it wasn’t. Jesus has working through every generation of human history from the very first day Adam and Eve sinned and the world needed a Saviour. He has also been working since His time on earth to bring world history to where it is today. Soon we will be ready for the next great change to come. That change will be His return in the clouds to rescue His people.
Most people today have seen Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments”, starring Charlton Heston. It’s on TV practically every Easter. If you’ve seen the film or any other Bible movie on Moses, you’ll be familiar with the story of how God appeared to Moses and spoke to him out of a burning bush. Yet look very carefully at the actual reference from Exodus 3:2-6.
And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.
Notice it was an “Angel” who talked with Moses, yet He is clearly God. This is why of all the modern English Bibles I could have quoted form in this blog, I chose the New King James Version. Wherever in the Old Testament of the NKJV Bible you see “Angel”, that’s Christ. There are 59 such references with another 2 that use the ‘angel’ asnd then in the margin have ‘Angel’.
This maybe a hard concept to grasp as it’s so easy to conjure up old pictures of angels being winged human–like creatures who may have great power and strength, but are clearly not God. The misunderstanding comes from the word itself. It simply means “messenger” According to Isaiah 59:1, 2, we are cut off from God the Father by sin. Therefore God the Son comes as His messenger, or Angel.
Similarly in Joshua 5:15 He is “Commander of the Lord’s Host”. We see the same message given to Joshua here to remove his footwear. Therefore it’s the same being giving the message as the One who appeared to Moses. He is Holy and therefore no ordinary angel. “Then the Commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.”
Here are a few extra texts to look up if you feel so inclined. In Judges 13:20-22 Samson’s parents offered a sacrifice and the Angel accepted this worship. Ordinary angels don’t do this, see Revelation 19:10. Genesis 19:24 is from the story Sodom and Gomorrah. Read the whole story and you will see three beings from heaven who appear to Abraham. Two of whom are angels, one of whom is God. Here we have two references to “the Lord”. One “Lord” is on earth calling the judgements down and the other “Lord” is in Heaven raining down those judgements. Jesus must be one while God the Father is the other.
Daniel 10:13 calls Michael “one of the chief princes”. A prince is a royal term. The Hebrew word in verse 13 for ‘chief princes’ actually refers to the Trinity. So Michael is one of the Trinity! Verse 21 calls Him “your prince”. Our Lord and Saviour has over three hundred names in the scriptures. Some are titles, others are descriptions. None of them take away from His divinity. This includes the title of ‘Michael’.
I’ll have a little more to say on this in the chapter “John 3:16 in-depth”. For now the important thing is the effect this truth can have one your understanding of who Jesus is. He is not a mortal man who was deified by later generations of believers. That would make the gospels useless. Indeed the whole Bible would be pointless. No, Jesus is God. And God became a man in the early first century, AD to die on the cross for our sins. That one wonderful weekend was the end all and be all of the plan of salvation in one sense; and yet in another it wasn’t. Jesus has working through every generation of human history from the very first day Adam and Eve sinned and the world needed a Saviour. He has also been working since His time on earth to bring world history to where it is today. Soon we will be ready for the next great change to come. That change will be His return in the clouds to rescue His people.
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