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.

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.

The Secret Keys That Unlock the Real Truth Post One

A few years ago a friend of a friend told me about a practical joke someone once played that I thought was really funny. The victim of the gag was a woman hosting a Thanksgiving dinner. She had made effort upon effort to get everything just right for the special meal. What she didn’t know was that hours before, one of her guests had snuck into the kitchen and stuffed a Cornish game hen inside the turkey. When she went to carve up her beautiful bird, there was this other bird inside it. As the scene unfolded, the hostess was overwhelmed with shock, guilt and horror. “I killed the baby”, was her only thought. Morbidly funny I’ll admit, but think about this situation, birds lay eggs right? All birds do, yes, WITHOUT EXCEPTION! If this was the first case ever of a bird giving birth like a mammal, why wasn’t the baby bird whole and intact? Why was it prepared for eating just like the turkey? Even though the evidence in that immediate moment seemed completely overwhelming, logic and truth needed to prevail because what she saw was only a trick played on her by someone else.

What if you were in a similar situation? What if you saw something so overwhelming it had to be true, even though every single bit of logic and truth said it wasn’t, what would you do? What would you believe? People who buy into the modern, scientific mindset have no room in their belief system for the spirit world at all. Yet miracles still happen that science cannot explain all over the world. However, what very few are willing to consider is that there is such a thing as a false miracle. This is not to use the word ‘false’ in the sense of some slight of hand magician’s trick. What I mean is a real, supernatural event, but one that does not come from God.

First and foremost the Bible very clearly speaks of two supernatural forces working on this planet. On one side we have God and on the other there is the devil. 2 Corinthians 11:14 says “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” In other words, you can’t always tell them apart. God will work in your life and when He does He will make sure you know it is Him who is working. Satan will work in your life and will also try to make you thinks its God working. So how then can you tell? You can’t just trust your own eyes and ears; you need a standard beyond yourself. Satan has the power to work miracles that lead people to believe his lies. This kind of question is something the whole world has to face more often than people realize, especially in stories of near-death experiences. Millions of people say, “But I know what I saw, it was real!” Was it really? Why would God clearly and consistently say one thing about what death is really like for 59 centuries and then contradict Himself in our time?

Isaiah 8:19, 20 says “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” There you have it. Satan’s false miracles are always shall we say, “flashy”; they’re designed to wow people with no real purpose. When God works, there’s a message there. The “law and the testimony” refer to the Bible and the Ten Commandments. A true miracle from God will pass the test of His word. Notice something else here. That is a connection between false miracles and death. The God of the Bible is referred to as the Living God. He works through living people, who are called prophets. Satan’s way of working is very often contained in “messages from beyond the grave“.

So the very first secret key we’ll look at is the fact that when you die you really do die. We have already found the proper balance between creation and evolution, that God has been creating solar systems for countless eons of time, but that each one was created and did not evolve. He has the power to cause matter to come into existence and that’s what makes Him God, among other things. Therefore the creation story of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 is not mythical but a realistic account of the very first week in planet earth’s history and it happened about six thousand years ago.

Genesis 2:7 gives us the process whereby the Lord created our first father, Adam. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” The word being there is translated soul in other Bible versions. This is something that must be fully understood, Man does not HAVE a soul man IS a soul. The combination of a physical body and this ‘breath of life’ make a soul. The Bible uses the word ‘soul’ almost 1700 times and never calls it immortal.

A SOUL IS NOT A GHOST! So says 1 Peter 3:20 “who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.” Did eight ghosts get onto Noah’s Ark? No, eight living, breathing people did.

What most people think of when they use the word soul is this “breath of life”, which is another great mystery we’ll never fully solve and simply have to accept. Whatever it is, it has something to do with the ability to breath and something to do with the electricity that runs our minds. This ‘breath’ is also called ‘spirit’ or ‘ghost’ in certain Bible verses. It is the energy God gives to make life. This energy is not a conscious entity of its own. Job 27:3 puts it this way “As long as my breath is in me, And the breath of God in my nostrils”. When Paul spoke to the Greeks of his day, from whom we get our modern science, he said in Acts 17:28 “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

Life comes from God and only from Him. Think about the computer you are using right now to read this blog. It has a hard drive and a processor, which are physical piece of equipment that parallel the functions of your brain. These cannot work unless the machine is turned on and plugged into the electrical power source, which is simply energy and nothing more. There is no way to communicate directly with that energy, it simply powers the machinery.