tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75242922024-03-13T06:55:03.030-04:00Pen of IronUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger321125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-55212910135694862462008-12-04T04:07:00.005-04:002008-12-04T20:08:38.596-04:00the author and finisher of our faith<span style="color:#000066;">This is the actual sermon that will be aired on Sunday, 07-12-2008, ON WCHP radio, 760 AM.</span><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/12/767588/the%20author%20and%20finisher%20of%20our%20faith.mp3" type="audio/mpeg mpga mp2 mp3" autostart="false" loop="false" controls="console"></embed>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-44147897038175660232008-12-02T03:16:00.004-04:002008-12-02T03:30:26.201-04:00the author and finisher of our faith<span style="color:#000066;"><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Hebrews 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.</span><br /><br />The word “faith” here stands for 3 things in the Bible.<br /><br />1) Jesus is the author and finisher of the scriptures.<br /><br />2) Jesus is the author and finisher of the hope.<br /><br />3) Jesus is the author and finisher of the Christian race.<br /><br />1. <strong><em>Jesus is the author and finisher of the scriptures</em></strong><br /><br />As a born-again Bible-believer, there is nothing for you to believe outside what the Lord Jesus Christ delivered in the scriptures. Christians have a common faith because they have common scriptures which were<br /><br />1) authored,<br />2) finished,<br />3) delivered,<br />4) revealed,<br />5) taught,<br />6) preserved,<br />7) and magnified<br /><br />by the Lord Jesus Christ.<br /><br />The Bible is Jesus’ articles of faith.<br />Our common faith is the Bible itself; not the catechism, not Vatican 1 or 2 or 3, or the council of Trent, or the canons of Dort or the Synod of Emden, or the Westminister confession of faith or any other defiled product of the human spirit.<br /><br />I once offered a gospel tract to an older gentleman. He refused by saying "No thank you, I'm a Catholic".<br />I said "Sir, those are just Bible verses".<br />He then gave me as honest a confession as I've ever heard:<br />"It's ok, we a have a little more than that".<br /><br /><br />He not only authored the scriptures, he finished them. When Christians deny the fact that the Lord preserves his word down through the years and translations, they deny the fact that he is the finisher of our faith.<br />How could he be the finisher of our faith if he didn’t preserve it?<br /><br /><br />The Lord Jesus Christ spoke and some 40 Hebrew secretaries wrote. Sometimes he wrote himself.<br />Once he etched two tables of stone with his finger in the backside of a desert.<br />Another time he scribbled on the plaister of the wall of a king’s palace.<br />If you’re born-again, it’s because he’s written upon the table of your heart.<br /><br />The Lord Jesus Christ wrote the prologue and the epilogue of the Bible and everything in between.<br />He’s there in the first verse of the Book:<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.</span><br /><br />He’s there in the last verse of the Book:<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Revelation 22:21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.</span><br /><br />He’s there in the middle verse of the Book:<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 103:1 <a>Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.</span></a><br /><br />Beware of getting carried away with the Red Letter editions of the Bible. All the words of the Bible are inspired by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, not just the red stuff.<br /><br />The Lord Jesus Christ wrote the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels and the Epistles.<br /><br />He is the only author to have written anything before his birth and after his death.<br /><br />He is the best-selling, best-loved authored of all time.<br />He is the most-read, most-translated, most-quoted, most-plagiarized, most-immitated, most-criticized, most-praised author of all time.<br /><br />In the Pentateuch, he’s a greater anthropolgist than Levi-strauss.<br />In Joshua, he’s a greater military strategist than Thucydides and Clausewitz.<br />In Judges he’s a greater tragedist than Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus.<br />In Ruth he’s a greater short-story writer than Hemingway.<br />In 1 Samuel to Esther, he’s a greater historian than Herodotus.<br />In Job he’s a greater dramatist than Shakespear.<br />In the Psalms he’s a greater song-writer than Homer.<br />In Proverbs he’s a greater writer of wisdom than Confucius.<br />In Ecclesiastes he’s a greater philosopher than Plato.<br />In Song of songs he’s a greater poet than Wordsworth and Neruda.<br />In Isaiah to Malachi he’s a greater prophet than Nostradamus.<br />In the gospels he’s a greater autobiographist than Augustine.<br />In the epistles he’s a greater letter-writer than Horace.<br />In Hebrews he’s a greater theologian than Ruckman and Larkin and Scofield.<br />In Revelation he’s a greater horror-writer than Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King.<br /><br />Did you know that Stephen King is mentioned in the Bible?<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Job 18:14 His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to <strong>the king of terrors.<br /></strong></span><br />That’s in the middle of a context dealing with the antichrist, who is to be brought to the king of terrors. Stephen King is dealing with a very dangerous spirit.<br /><br />You look unto Jesus in prayer and also in reading the scriptures “looking unto Jesus the author”. How in the world can you do that unless you’re looking at what he authored?<br /><br />The Holy Ghost in the verse writes “looking” and in the same breath mentions “faith”.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">2Corinthians 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)<br /></span><br />The Lord Jesus Christ is the Word of God.<br />How can you know the Word of God if you don’t read the word of God?<br />How can you consider yourself a Christian if you’ve never read the whole Bible? If you’ve never finished the scriptures, how can you know the one who finished them? How are you as a spiritual Christian, looking unto Jesus, if you’re not constantly in the book?<br /><br /><br />At the end of the day, you either believe the author of this book, or another author. You either have the faith of Jesus Christ, or the faith of another man.<br />At the end of the day it’s “thus saith the Lord” versus “Thus saith so and so”.<br />It’s author against author; book against book.<br /><br /><br />2. <strong><em>Jesus is the author and finisher of the hope.</em></strong><br /><br />More than once the Bible will speak about “the faith of the Son of God” or “the faith of Christ”. The faith you have is the faith of God. That doesn’t mean that the Lord has faith; it means he gives faith: the faith that is of God, that comes of God.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:<br />Ephesians 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.<br /></span><br />The antecedent of “it” is faith. The faith that you have in Jesus Christ was not produced by you. It was given to you of God. How was the ability to believe in Jesus Christ given you? By the preaching of the word of God.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.</span><br /><br />According to the last half of the verse, you hadn’t heard anything until you heard the word of God. Hearing comes by the word of God. So until the word of God had come to you, you had been spiritually deaf. You hadn’t heard a spiritual sound in your life until you heard a verse being quoted. There are physical sounds detected by your flesh and there are spiritual sounds detected by your spirit. Your spirit had never heard anything until it heard the words of God because they are spirit (John 6:63) and spiritual sounds are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14)<br />When you heard the word of God, at the moment God also gave you the ability to believe it. But you can stop your ears. You can shut down the sound. And then like the Pharisees, you will not understand the speech of the Lord Jesus Christ because you cannot hear it. Just like a radio station, when you don’t receive something you can’t hear it. If the word of God doesn’t speak to you it’s because you’ve hit the “mute” button.<br /><br />I stand here today to preach the Lord Jesus Christ. I love and worship him. I have never seen him. I have never heard him. I have never touched him.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">1Peter 1:8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:</span><br /><br />Not only do born-again Christians believe in Jesus Christ. They love him. Many people believe in Muhammad. Nobody loves him. Many people believe in Buddha. Nobody loves him. Christians are not a special breed of people who are able to produce dillusional faith. We exercise no effort in believing in the face of reality. Our God gave us the faith. We simply have it and we obtained that wonderful gift by receiving his words when we heard them. We simply didn’t turn off the radio station. Obtaining faith is as easy as hearing.<br />Saving faith is a gift. Do you want to become a believer? Then just listen. The Lord Jesus Christ will make a believer out of you. It is his gift.<br />It had to be that way because Hebrews 11:6 says “without faith it is impossible to please him”<br />Well faith is a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22, not of man.<br />There are no great believers; just great hearers.<br />If you want to grow in faith, then simply do what you first did to obtain faith: hear the word of God. Spend time in the Bible and God will increase your faith.<br /><br />Hebrews 12:2 has more to say.<br /><br />This is a generation of quitters. They quit school, then they quit work. They quit the wife then they quit the children. They quit the ministry, then they quit the church.<br /><br />Jesus Christ never quit a thing in his life.<br /><br />He didn’t quit carpentry, he didn’t quit his ministry, he didn’t quit his own.<br />Though all quit on you, he won’t.<br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><br />Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:</span><br /><br />Do you know why charity is greater than hope and faith in 1 Corinthians 13? It is because whereas “charity never faileth”, hope and faith do. Heaven is a hopeless, faithless place. Exactly what every atheist dreams of, and he can only get there by faith. Evidenly our God also has a taste for irony.<br /><br />Jesus Christ walked up Golgotha, got on the cross and did not come down till he had cried “it is finished”. (John 19:30)<br />He is the author and finisher of our faith and when his blessed hand scribbles “the end” with its own blood, woe to that man that would presume to add a P.S.<br />If your faith does begin as well as end with Jesus, then your faith is not in Jesus. It’s not Jesus, Mary and Joseph. It’s Jesus, Jesus and Jesus.<br /><br /><br />3) <strong><em>Jesus is the author and finisher of the Christian race.</em></strong><br /><br />When Paul says in <span style="color:#cc0000;">2Timothy 4:7 “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:”<br /></span>“ the faith” as Paul speaks of it, includes worshipping Jesus Christ as God, believing the scriptures, the resurrection, the rapture, separated living, the renewing of the mind, the two natures of the believer, a heavenly conversation, a right attitude, an honest testimony, a bold witness, an assurance of eternal life and the will of God.<br />The author and finisher of all these things is Jesus.<br /><br /><br />The reason we look unto Jesus is precisely because he is the author and finisher of our faith. The Spirit of Jesus Christ never bore witness unto Mary, or the Pope, or any “saint”.<br />All Christians recognize that. But sometimes, though Christians realize that their faith was authored by Jesus, they think it is finished by Ruckman, or Billy Sunday or the pastor or the deacon or some missionary. That’s why they get offended and quit. They weren’t looking unto Jesus. You didn’t leave because Jesus offended you. You left because someone else offended you. That proves you weren’t looking unto or coming for Jesus and no amount of arguing will ever change that.<br /><br />In v.1 he said I’m compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses.<br />Have you read the list of witnesses in chapter 11. Those are men I would live and die to emulate; good men, just men, men who had the respect of God himself.<br />And though I am compassed about with so great a cloud, yet am I commanded to look unto Jesus. If you’re running the race looking unto the witnesses you’re liable to run into a cloud.<br />You can run in the right direction while looking at the people around you and you can run in the right direction while looking at yourself.<br /><br />In swimming, you're taught a stop-jump. There's a technique whereby when you jump into the water you can avoid sinking your head below the water level so you can maintain visual contact with victim. Otherwise when your head comes back out of the water, you might lose the drowing victim in the horizon or the crowd.<br /><br />That's how a Christian should run the race, never for a moment losing sight of Jesus.<br />Of course, he is the saviour but if he wouldn't lose sight of you, you shouldn't lose sight of him.<br /><br />Jesus creates Adam, then he comes as the last Adam.<br />He writes the scriptures, then he says “it is written”.<br />He births you by water and he births you by the Spirit.<br />You’re crucified with Jesus you’re risen with Jesus.<br />You sleep in Jesus, you’re brought back with Jesus.<br />To live is Christ, to die is gain.<br />You’re present in the body you’re absent from the Lord, you’re absent from the body you’re present with the Lord.<br />Jesus goes outside the camp and Jesus bids you come along with him.<br />Jesus reconciles your alienated mind and gives you the mind of Christ.<br />He is your Saviour and he is your Judge.<br />The church began with his first coming, the church ends with his second coming.<br />We are his rib, he is our Head.<br /><br />He is the cornerstone and the headstone.<br />He is the foundation and he is the crown.<br />He is Alpha and Omega.<br />He is the beginning and the ending.<br />He is the first and he is the last.<br />He is the root of David and the offspring of David.<br />He is the Son of God and he is the Son of Man.<br /><br />He is the author and finisher of your faith.<br /><br />Do you know why we do anything? It’s so we can give more pleasure to Jesus. We obey him so we can love him. We worship him so we can please him. We witness, not merely for the sake of saving a sinner’s soul from hell, but that Jesus might have one more person to love and worship him. You pray and read the Bible and listen to preaching so you can grow; not merely so you can get more blessings but that Jesus might get more glory out of you. We seek wisdom so we can serve him better.<br />We seek knowledge so we can know him better. The be all end all of anything a Christian strives for, is precisely so he can get into a position where he can better worship Jesus Christ.<br />That’s why prayer is so central to our faith. When you are praying, you are at the height of the Christian faith: the worship God in intimacy, which is greater than worshipping God in service. You’re up there spiritually beholding the face of the Father.<br /><br />You look unto Jesus in prayer and you look unto him in reading the Bible. How else can you look at the author of your faith in this age?<br />When you’re reading and praying, you are at the height of the Christian faith. (Forsight insight) That’s why you can boil down 50% of all sermons preached to “read your Bible and pray everyday”.<br /><br />Now how will he finish our faith?<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">2Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.<br /></span><br />This is how he authors your faith.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">1Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.</span><br /><br />This is how he finishes your faith: sight.<br />We were the joy that was set before him.<br />He is the joy that is set before us.<br /></span><br /><br /></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com43tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-59659490269673604332008-11-19T01:47:00.002-04:002008-11-19T01:50:33.374-04:00Our church's website<span style="color:#000066;">Finally, our website is up. This is where Revelation.2.17, Consecrated, and Redeemed meet with the church to worship our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Enjoy the tour, and if you're ever up around Montreal or Laval, please come by.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://montrealbbc.com/">http://montrealbbc.com/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-58599218141514908622008-11-07T02:14:00.003-04:002008-11-07T04:27:35.060-04:00Ravenhill on Revival, 1989<p><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwDJeOBIQNkgVavMGGmWp0WrLvAPtInpRY1a1DVQgBc7IQXLjjl-bgmh5TOy8evGORnJO7kK510iAA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></p><p> </p><p><span style="color:#000066;">Leonard Ravenhill was a true man of God. Although he twice ducks out of answering the question concerning the Biblical truth that the church age must end in apostasy, not revival, he nevertheless has more fervor for the Lord Jesus Christ in his pinky than 75% percent of modern preachers have in their whole body.</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">Listen, consider, and pray.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-23852836095784479692008-10-03T17:03:00.002-04:002008-10-03T17:05:48.384-04:00Correction<span style="color:#000066;">The radio program will be airing on Sunday at 12:30 PM instead of 10 AM as previously thought.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">We've faced spiritual opposition at every stage of getting the program going, but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The WCHP administration was also very helpul and courteous. Thank you.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-2917766637919017702008-10-01T01:14:00.005-04:002008-10-01T01:47:57.930-04:00The weakness of God<span style="color:#000066;">Lord willing this first Sunday of October, the 5th of the month, Bible Baptist Church in Laval, Quebec, Canada, will be preaching the word of God on the Radio.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The program will be airing on Sunday mornings at 10 on Radio station WCHP 760 AM which airs out of Vermont. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Most of us involved are relatively new to the scene, but we are honoured and thankful for this opportunity to glorify our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.</span> <span style="color:#000066;">This is a sermon that might be airing soon. It is entitled "the weakness of God"</span><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/12/767588/the%20weakness%20of%20God.mp3" width="244" height="62" type="audio/mpeg mpga mp2 mp3" controls="console" loop="false" autostart="false"></embed> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-78940186751811046632008-09-16T23:03:00.029-04:002008-10-18T18:41:21.844-04:00Gap theory? Gap fact.<span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.<br />Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.</span><br /><br />Genesis 1:2 is not a part of the creation process. The six days of creation following Genesis 1:2 are actually six days of <strong>recreation</strong>. During those days God restores the original creation of v.1 which had been destroyed in v.2.<br />So what you have is the following:<br /><br />A) God creates the original heaven and earth in v.1. Everything is complete and we are not told how he did it or how long it took him.<br />The anointed Cherub is Lucipher who’s God’s right-hand over the universe.<br />According to 2 Peter 3:5 that earth was standing in the water and out of the water. So it was like a ball floating in the waters of space with probably half of it sticking out of the water like a dome.<br />I realize this looks like left-field to most readers but if you will read on you might find out that the whole thing is a lot more scriptural that you thought.<br /><br />B) At some point, Lucipher rebels as described in Isaiah 14 and decides to overthrow God. The whole thing ends in a debacle, God floods the universe and turns off the lights.<br /><strong>Genesis 1:2 is a snapshot of that.</strong><br /><br />C) In Genesis 1:3 God turns back on the lights.<br /><br />D) In Genesis 1:7 God restores the water-damage, revealing the universe.<br /><br />E) In Genesis 1:9 God restores the water-damage, revealing the earth.<br /><br />F) In Genesis 1:27 God replaces Lucipher with Adam, only smaller, because<br />the last free-willed son of God ruined the universe.<br /><br />Amongst believers who deny the gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, I personally have met very, very few who have actually taken the time to sit down and sketch out the creative process of Genesis 1 <strong>while satisfying all verses</strong>. That includes preachers and teachers. The careful reader will soon find himself in a Gordian knot that only the gap can untie. I attempted enumerating a few strings of that knot but found it so bewildering that I just thought it best to leave it to you, gentle reader, to make sense of the account without the gap.<br /><br />I am thoroughly aware of all objections. I will not here concentrate on meeting them, but on proving positively that Genesis 1 is so written as to present an account of the recreation of the universe. Whatever objections you have left, or new ones that might arise, I will be willing to meet specifically.<br />Above all arguments, towers the inspired system of studying the word of God, which is comparing scripture with scripture as outlined in Isaiah 28:9-10 and 1 Corinthians 2:13. So if I want to know if “without form, and void” is a positive or negative expression, I search out those words as they appear in the rest of the Bible in order to understand the connotation.<br />And those are things which “cannot be spoken against.” (Acts 19:36)<br /><br />Let it lastly be said that I do not believe in the gap because I’m looking for a way to reconcile what “science falsely so-called” presents as a ridiculously old earth. I believe it because that what the scriptures present.<br />After all, I do contend that there’s a gargantuan body of water North of deep space that separates the universe from the third heaven. I further believe that the earth is recreated <strong>before</strong> the sun. So with positions like these, I hope it will be obvious to the honest reader that I am not pandering to the scientific world.<br /><br /><u>Scripture With Scripture</u></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me <strong>void</strong>,</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">If God’s word does not return unto him <strong>void</strong>, how could the earth have been created void by his word?</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 4:23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was <strong>without form, and void</strong>; and the heavens, and they had no light.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Three elements match Genesis 1:2; lack of form, void, and darkness.The words <strong>without form, and void</strong>; are used in the context of destruction, not creation.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Nahum 2:10 She is empty, and <strong>void</strong>, and waste:</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The word <strong>void </strong>is used in the context of destruction. It is associated with <strong>waste,</strong> i.e. the destruction caused the void.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">It's not that Jesus Christ didn't have a shape, for in Isaiah 52:14 he is said to have a form. </span></span><br /></span></span><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">But he had ¨¨no form¨¨ in the sense that he had no comeliness, no beauty. </span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Similarly, it's not that the earth had no shape at all, <strong>but it was without form in the sense that it was a jumbled up, beat up, unrecognizable mess; just like Jesus' face and body were after the beating he went through</strong>. (See Isaiah 52:14!). Yet again the context is judgment and the idea negative. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;color:#000066;">This is nobody's private interpretation but the Holy Spirit's own comments on the words.</span><br /></span><span style="color:#000066;"></span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><u></u></span></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><u>The World That Then Was</u></span></span><br /><p></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">2Peter 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:<br />2Peter 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:<br />2Peter 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.<br /></span><br />That he isn’t speaking of Noah’s flood is apparent from the following:<br /><br />1. In the overflow Peter is referring to, the heavens also perished, implying that the heavens of today (v.7) are not the heavens that were there then, hence he calls them “old”.<br />The problem is that:<br /><br />A) The heavens did not perish in Noah's flood, only the earth did.<br /><br />B) The heavens is always a term that includes space. The atmosphere is called “heaven”, but never “heavens”.<br />Peter is saying that all of deep space perished in that particular overflow. That certainly did not happen in Noah’s flood.<br /><br />2. Nor did the earth perish in Noah’s flood. We still have the same earth as Noah, as evidenced by the residual oceans. For earth to perish would mean for it to disintegrate. According to Peter in the same chapter, there will come a day when the heavens and the earth shall be so destroyed that God will have to make what is termed as new heavens and a new earth because the former will have perished.<br />That destruction is so complete that the earth is said to be dissolved (vss.10-11). <strong>It is in comparison to that kind of destruction that the next earth is termed ``new``</strong>. No such destruction befell Noah’s earth. It just got washed of its filth.<br />So today’s earth is a not a new earth compared to Noah’s <strong>in that sense</strong>, nor is it ever called "new".<br />Today's earth is the same earth that Noah walked on and cannot be termed "new" in comparison. But it can be termed new in comparison to the earth of Genesis 1:2 which was "without form, and void".<br /><br /><br />3. Peter is then drawing symmetry between the destruction of Genesis 1:2 and the destruction of 2 Peter 3:7,12. </span></span></p><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><p><br />You also have another symmetry within that one, which is the destruction of the earth in Noah’s flood and its destruction at the second advent of the Lord.</p><p>In those two events, earth’s topography is changed, but the earth doesn’t perish. It is symmetrically renovated in those two events; it is symmetrically destroyed at Satan’s first <span style="color:#000066;">rebellion (Genesis 1:2) and Satan’s last rebellion after the 1000 year reign of Christ on earth (Revelation 20:9).</span> </p><p></p><p>The symmetry is <strong>A B B A</strong>.</span></span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:times new roman;color:#000066;"><strong>BB</strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">The earth is destroyed at man's first rebellion, and again at his last rebellion. The first time it is destroyed by water (Genesis<span style="color:#000066;"> 6:17) and the last time when the times of the Gentiles come to an end, it</span> is destroyed by fire (2Thessalonians 1:8).</span></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><strong>AA</strong></span></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br />The earth is destroyed at Satan's first rebellion and again at his last rebellion. The first time it was destroyed with water (Genesis 1:2), the last time it is destroyed by fire (Revelation 20:9). </span></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></p></span></span><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><p><br />4. In v.5 Peter says that that earth was standing in the water and out of the water. Today’s earth isn’t standing in the water and out of the water but hangs on nothing in space (Job 26:7). To say that today’s earth fits that description in that the land mass stands out of the oceans ignores the fact that Peter is pointing out that description as a specific characteristic of the earth that than was. He’s saying: unlike today’s earth, the old earth was standing in and out of the<span style="color:#000066;"> water. He’s highlighting a distinctive feature of the old earth in contradistinction to today’s earth. Otherwise what would be the point of mentioning that characteristic?<br />It would be like saying that the earth that then was which had a blue sky, perished. Well so what? So does this one.<br />No, for the specification to make any sense one would have to consider that the world that then was, in context, is not Noah’s world. And it must’ve stood in the water and out of the water in a way that is different than today’s world.</span></span></span></p><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="color:#000066;">Moreover, nobody anywhere is willingly ignorant of the fact that earth’s land mass juts out of the oceans! They can see that with their eyes.<br />So if Peter is referring to that fact when he says `standing in the water and out of the water` he’s wrong. Common sense tells you he’s talking about something else.<br /><br />Peter is talking about people who are willingly ignorant of the Old Testament scriptures concerning the `original` earth. Check the context: `the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets` v.2. How would anyone know that the heavens and the earth were created by the word of God (v.5) except by reading the word of God?!<br /><br />So what verses were those scoffers ignoring in relation to the earth `standing in the water and out of the water`?<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 24:1 <a>The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.<br />Psalm 24:2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.</span></a><br /><br />Today’s earth isn’t founded or established upon any waters but hangs on nothing! (Job 26:7).<br /><br />Again:<br /><br /></span><span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 136:6 To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for his mercy endureth for ever.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;color:#000066;"><u>Picture Of Judgment</u><br /><br />Bear in mind that Noah’s flood was a judgment. Below are parallel imageries between Noah’s flood and the overflow of Genesis 1:2.<br /><br />· In Genesis 8:8-9 a dove flies upon the face of the waters.<br />A dove is type of the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:22) which "moves upon the face of the waters."<br /><br />· In Genesis 8:1 a wind passes over the waters.<br />Wind is a type of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16) which moves upon the face of the waters.<br /><br />· In Genesis 7:18 the ark goes upon “the face of the waters” just like the Spirit of God moved “upon the face of the waters”.<br /><br />In all those cases the imagery is that of judgment.<br /><br /></span><p><span style="font-family:times new roman;color:#000066;"><u>Satan's Rebellion</u><br /><br />If Genesis 1:2 doesn’t picture the destruction of a pre-Adamic earth, then the initial rebellion of the Devil and his angels must be placed somewhere between the 8th day and Genesis 3:1, the angelic beings having been created at some point during the six days of creation. However unlikely that they rebelled within such a short time span without an exterior influence as in the case of Eve, it still may have happened.<br /><br />But the problem is that we don’t we read of God creating the angelic beings anywhere during the six days of Genesis 1. Genesis 2:1 is a reference to the sun, the moon, and the stars. I can place that host in Genesis 1:16. But where are the angels, the Seraphims and the Cherubims? Why are the sun, moon and stars mentioned in heaven; the beasts, cattle and even creeping things mentioned in earth, while the creation of the angelic beings, certainly the most glorious of all created life, never even discussed?<br /><br />The only possible answer is that they were already there. This is confirmed in Job 38:4-7.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.<br />Job 38:5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?<br />Job 38:6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;<br />Job 38:7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?</span><br /><br />According to God the morning stars and the sons of God were there singing and shouting while he was laying the corner stone of the earth. (Probably even before the creation of the earth of Genesis 1:1)<br />Yet back in Genesis 1 the earth is there before the sun, moon and stars.<br />You’ve got quite a problem if you don’t understand that Genesis 1 relates six days of <strong>recreation. </strong></span></p><p><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><u>Notable Omission</u><br /><br />After describing each day of creation, the Holy Spirit mentions that God saw that it was good except for the second day wherein God creates the heaven.<br />Why? A bible-believer whose senses are exercised by reason of reading the word will here detect an inspired omission of the Holy Spirit.<br />It is no chance that such an omission is made for that particular day as will soon be proved.<br /><br />By denying that Genesis 1:2 is a judgment of a pre-Adamite earth one has no explanation why God does not see the heaven as “good” in Genesis 1:7.<br /><br />Some might object by referring to the last verse of Genesis 1 which says "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." But that is simply a general statement in relation to the overall creation and does not apply to every day specifically. That this is so is clear for two reasons, the first being common sense. There might be some undesirable element in a part of a work, such as a painting, but the outstanding element does not rob that particular work of art from being called "very good". The second reason that v.31 cannot apply to every creative day specifically is because God saw that each day was "good", not "very good" else the Bible would've said so. Afterall, the Holy Spirit did choose to add the word "very" in v.31.<br /><br />So why did God not see that the heaven was good? This is not an isolated incident of negative connotation. The rest of the scriptures also present the heavens with a specifically negative connotation.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Job 15:15 Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.</span><br /><br />God's point of view is again negative. In Genesis 1:7 he did not see that the heaven was good, and according to Job they are not clean in his sight.<br />How could something that God created be found unclean?<br />The answer is because of what took abode in that heaven.<br /><br />Job a gets a little more specific:<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Job 25:5 Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.<br /></span><br />Again with God's sight. God created the stars, how then can they be impure?<br />The answer is what those stars are associated with: angels.<br /><br />Remember that in Job 38:7 God speaks of angelic beings as "stars". Many times the scriptures will speak of angels as stars.<br /><br />The reason that God never says that the heaven was good in Genesis 1:7 is because Satan and his fallen angels infested that heaven after they were judged in the overflow of Genesis 1:2.<br /><br />That's why Genesis 6:11 says<br /><br />The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.<br /><br />It says "also" because the heaven had already been corrupted by fallen angels back in Genesis 1:7 as they repopulated the heaven which God had flooded in Genesis 1:2.<br />But when God recreated the earth in Genesis 1:9-12 he sees that it is good because he had cleansed it of its rebellious host and it wasn't corrupt anymore, albeit for a short period of time.<br /><br />That those evil beings inhabit the heavens is clear from scripture:<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 24:21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.<br /><br />1Corinthians 8:5 For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)<br /><br />Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.<br /></span><br />Haven't you noticed that space is dark? That is because it is filled with the powers of darkness.<br /><br />Those then were the gods that Satan was referring to when he seduced Eve.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Genesis 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, <span style="color:#000066;">(not "God") </span>knowing good and evil.</span><br /><br />The abode of the gods of Genesis 3:5 and 1 Corinthians 8:5 is not with flesh.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Daniel 2:11 And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.</span><br /><br />Their dwelling today is in the heavens. They once inhabited the pre-Adamite earth in (probably) physical bodies, just like the gods that would later inhabit Noah's earth in physical bodies (Genesis 6:4). It is very clear in scripture that angels can take on physical bodies and interact with men. The references are too numerous to list.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.<br />Psalm 82:7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.</span><br /><br />The problem of fallen angels is that once they become men, they can also die as such. Even Hollywood understood that truth in movies like "city of angels". That shows you that the writers are either Bible students or they're inspired by devils.<br /><br />Men are not gods and men die physically. God is talking to fallen angels and telling them that since they have taken physical form, he will kill them physically, like he kills mere men. He did it twice before; once in Genesis 1:2 and once in Genesis 7, and will do it yet again at the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ who himself warned us (Luke 17:26) that what happened in the days of Noah (see Genesis 6) will happen again.<br /><br /><br />(If you can't believe all this and remain skeptical how water can destroy spiritual beings, simply recall that the Bible clearly teaches that Satan and his angels are judged by fire. If they can be judged by fire, they can be judged by water.)<br /><br />Finally, all this explains why God is interested in destroying the heavens, not just the earth alone.<br />The reason is that the universe is infested with wicked spiritual beings<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 34:4 And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.<br /><br />2Peter 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.<br /><br />2Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.<br /><br />2Peter 3:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?</span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;color:#000066;"><br /><u>Satan in Eden</u><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Ezekiel 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.</span><br /><br />In Ezekiel 28:13, Satan is present in Eden the garden of God in his pre-fall glory, certainly not as a serpent. You could not account for that without considering a pre-Adamic earth, for the first time Satan appears in the Bible he’s in the garden of Eden as a fallen being.<br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">That Ezekiel 28:13 is a description of Lucipher’s glory before his fall is all the more clear from the parallel description of Aaron the high priest in Exodus 28:17-20. Aaron is there covered by all the stones mentioned in Ezekiel 28:13 and is certainly not standing as a picture of a fallen Cherub.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /></p></span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;color:#000066;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-71085870670983473722008-08-26T01:19:00.010-04:002008-08-26T02:15:05.987-04:00Preach, pray, or die<div align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">This is what we call "preach, pray, or die". You have a Bible verse assigned to you by lot. You have 5 minutes to pray for, and come up with a message and then 5 minutes to preach it.</span></span> </div><p align="left"></p><p align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">We were fellowshipping at a brother's house a couple of months ago one Saturday night.</span></p><p align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">We do not take God's word or the preaching thereof irreverently.</span></p><p align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">We love our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the things of God and the fellowship of his saints.</span></p><p align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">We realize this kind of fun may strike you as crazy, but it sure beats getting drunk with fake friends, acting like a fool and waking up with a hangover to stare at the vanity of your life.</span></p><p align="left"><span style="color:#000066;">May this encourage some weary soul.</span></p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"></p><br /><br /><p align="justify"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzpJkOuanA2p0BWMTuyuMERp2c8m5ZrL-nWEF6RqhOSJqSdqLvFQsBsnXSrRXzj4GMm76IQyBhN8Pk' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /></p><p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>"He is able to deliver thee" </strong></span></p><p align="justify"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwKY-RuTDYfYs6u2kwqjcJKacioh5y93FiCJJR0c6nTLIfcwGccsRqDxfnqYpkfhsjFVk9UO37aHZs' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><strong><span style="color:#000000;">"Will your anchor hold?"</span></strong> </p><p align="justify"> </p><p align="justify"></p><p align="justify"><span style="color:#000066;"> </p></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-66232280182409448582008-08-19T14:17:00.000-04:002008-08-19T14:18:33.413-04:00Clincher reply on value of hearing sermons<span style="color:#000066;">Someone sent this to me a few years back..I don't know who wrote it but thought it was great.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">A letter to the editor complained:</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">I've gone to church for 30yrs now. I've heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think that I am wasting my time, the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">This started a controversy that went on for weeks, to the delight of the Editor, until someone wrote this clincher.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">I've been married for 30yrs now. In that time, my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals.I do know this..They nourished me, and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me those meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourrishment, I would be spiritually dead today!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-11659103288115399012008-08-19T13:46:00.008-04:002008-08-19T14:13:03.414-04:00ERRORS IN THE SCOFIELD NOTES<span style="color:#000066;"><br />C.I. Scofield's notes remain some of the best notes on the Bible ever published. It is remarkable that a man could have so little and relatively minor errors in such a large work. Scofield was an honest and courageous dispensationalist who never flinched on the doctrine of the 1000 years reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on this earth and never confused Israel with the church of God. The Lord gave him special insight into many other areas of scripture. This list is a work-in-progress seeking simply to alert people to some mistakes in his notes.Given the popularity of the Scofield Bible, and the fact that no list of errors exists on the internet that I could find (only the ramblings of poor students of the word who seek to destroy the man and his work) I thought it useful to write it.<br /><br /><br /><em><strong>2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.</strong></em><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Genesis 6:4</span><br /><br />A) « Sons of God » is only used of angels in the Old Testament.<br /><br />B) They are not spoken of in a sexless way; they are spoken of as males.<br />(See Scofield’s own note in Hebrews 1 :4)<br /><br />C) They may not marry but they can still take on physical form and fornicate with human women.<br />Moreover Matthew 22 :30 refers specifically to angels « in heaven ».<br /><br />D) Whether « the uniform Hebrew and Christian interpretation has been that verse 2 marks the breaking down of the separation between the godly line of Seth and the godless line of Cain » is for one thing questionable and for another, irrelevant in light of scripture.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· Exodus 29:33, Leviticus 16:6<br /></span><br />The word « atonement » is the correct translation.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Leviticus 11:2</span><br /><br />The dietary regulations are primarily for the sake of teaching the people of God about the<br />holiness of God.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Leviticus 11:6</span><br /><br />The arnebeth and the hare are identical. To this day “Arneb” in Arabic means hare. The error is due to Scofield’s assumption that they’re different.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Numbers 22:22<br /></span><br />In v.12 God forbids Balaam to go with the messengers of Balak. In v.19 Balaam tries once more to get an O.K . In v.20 God tells him that if the men come to call him again, then he could go. The men never do and Balaam never waits for them to do so. He automatically packs up and leaves with them. That was not what God had told him to do, hence God’s anger.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· 2 Samuel 18:18</span><br /><br />The second view is the correct one. Absalom is a type of the antichrist who<br />loses all his children.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· 1 Chronicles 11:5</span><br /><br />The word Sion in Hebrews 12:22 is most certainly not used symbolically but quite literally, as in all other passages of the Bible.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Job 32:2</span><br /><br />Job 38:2 is not God’s judgment of Elihu’s words but of Job’s.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Job 38:1</span><br /><br />God answered Job, not « for Job ». The paraphrase is wrong and confusing.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 2:12</span><br /><br />(3) The titles of the Psalms are exactly where the Holy Spirit wants them.<br /><br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 8</span><br /><br />(1) Again, the title is in its right place.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· Psalm 19:9</span><br /><br />The « fear of the Lord » means the FEAR of the Lord, not « reverential trust, with hatred of evil ».<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 22:27</span><br /><br />It wasn’t partial but complete nudity.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Song of Solomon 2:14</span><br /><br />Yet again, the A.V. text is correct. The way to God is not a process and hence the translation cannot be « the secret of the stairs ».<br /><br />·<span style="color:#cc0000;"> Isaiah 2:2</span><br /><br />A mountain, in Scripture symbolism, means a mountain.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 26:19</span><br /><br />Eliminate Scofield’s correction to the A.V. text.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 63:16<br /></span><br />No Old Testament believer was ever « born anew » in the scriptures.<br /><br /><br />· <span style="color:#990000;"></span><span style="color:#cc0000;">Ezekiel 8:3</span><br /><br />It’s not « as if he were transported back to Jerusalem ». He was transported back to Jerusalem from the river Chebar, just like John was transported into heaven from the island of Patmos.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Ezekiel 28:12<br /></span><br />It’s the king of Tyre that’s being addressed indirectly, not Satan.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Ezekiel 37:1</span><br /><br />The resurrection of the dry bones is a literal resurrection, not merely a symbolic one.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· Daniel 7:2<br /></span><br />The sea, in scripture imagery, stands for a sea.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Daniel 7:17, 8 :1, Revelation 13:2</span><br /><br />The vision of Nebuchadnezzar does not cover the same historic order as the vision of Daniel. Daniel identifies the head of gold as Nebuchadnezzar and therefore as the Babylonian kingdom. But concerning Daniel’s own vision of the beasts, he is told by the angel that these are four beasts « which shall arise ». The Babylonian kingdom was already there at the time of Daniel’s vision. It was present, not future. The four beasts are four kingdoms that come after Babylon. That makes the last beast, which is divers from the first ones, the kindgom of the antichrist, not the Roman kingdom, although the former derives from the latter.<br /><br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Daniel 7:26, 8:9-10</span><br /><br />(2) The little horn of Daniel 7 is the little horn of Daniel 8, which is the antichrist. Antiochus Epiphanes was nothing more than a historical type, just like Hitler was a historical type of the antichrist and not the antichrist himself.<br />Daniel 8:10 is Revelation 12.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· Daniel 8 :13</span><br /><br />The fulfillment of ``the transgression of desolation`` is only that of the beast’s. All others were mere historical types.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Daniel 9 :24</span><br /><br />V. 25 is a reference to Messiah`s crucifixion, not birth, for the 69 weeks terminate the very day Jesus Christ is crucified.<br />V.26 is fulfilled by the destruction of the city by the antichrist, not by Titus in 70 A.D. That was, yet again, a historical type.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Daniel 9 :27</span><br /><br />In Daniel 11 :31 the reference is the the act of the antichrist and is yet future. Once more, the act of Antiochus Epiphanes was a mere adumbration of the real thing.<br /><br /></span><span style="color:#cc0000;">· Daniel 11 :2</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><br />Just forget about Antiochus. The personage who here occupies the vision is the antichrist himself.<br /><br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Daniel 11 :35</span><br /><br />It had always been the little horn, way before v.36.<br />The expression ``God of his fathers`` does point to a Jew and this does not conflict with Daniel 9 :26 because the antichrist will be a Roman Catholic Jew.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Joel 2 :11</span><br /><br />The army of his v.11 is the same army of verses 1 to 10.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Micah 4 :1</span><br /><br />In scripture, a mountain is the symbol for a mountain. See Isaiah 2:2.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Micah 5 :1</span><br /><br />Revelation 12 :2,5 is not a reference to Christ. See reference for note.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Habakkuk 2 :5</span><br /><br />Scripture reveals hell as a place of sorrow and fire.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Zechariah 1 :20</span><br /><br />They’re four carpenters and they’re literal ones too.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Zechariah 8 :14</span><br /><br />God doesn’t just seem to change his mind. He really does. That doesn’t contradict<br />James 1 :17. Where God binds himself to a position, he never changes his mind.<br />Where he doesn’t bind himself, he repents himself based on man’s free will which he gave him.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Zechariah 10 :4</span><br /><br />The past tense is correct. The scriptures wherein the past tense is used for a future event are too numerous to list.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Zechariah 11 :11</span><br /><br />The church, corporately, is in Old Testament prophecy. It just isn’t revealed until the New Testament. Like Bullinger, Scofield is confusing revelation with origin.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· Zechariah 12 :1</span><br /><br />The ``latter rain`` is a literal expression. There’s a supernatural rainstorm associated with the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ.<br /><br />Under (d), where he says ``absolute equity will be enforced``, beware not to read<br />``equality``.<br /><br />The majority of earth’s inhabitants will be lost, not saved. Revelation 20 :8.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Zechariah 14 :4</span><br /><br />The earthquake is caused by the foot of the Lord Jesus Christ coming into contact with the soil.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Malachi 3 :6</span><br /><br />Note (6) is utter rubbish. That which exists ``in the infinite being of God and answers to these things- eyes, a hand, feet``; happens to be actual eyes, and hands and and feet.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 3 :2</span><br /><br />Note (b) The fulfilment of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven takes place at the end of the tribulation and not at the end of the present church age.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 4 :21</span><br /><br />Not two but three persons are called James in the New Testament. James the Lord’s brother, was just that; the Lord’s brother by Mary, not his cousin. And he isn’t the author of the epistle of James. James Zebedee, brother of John, martyred in Acts 12 :2, is the author of the epistle of James.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 5 :22</span><br /><br />Hell and the lake of fire are not identical. Hell is the temporary holding cell before unforgiven sinners are locked up eternally in the lack of fire. You can never be saved from the second death once you’re in hell. You just go out of the fire and into the frying pan.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 7 :22</span><br /><br />The Bible doesn’t use the word ``demons`` but ``devils``, which reveals the fact that they are spawned by the devil. These are different than fallen angels. Some are human, like Judas Iscariot, while some are mere spirits which may have been disembodied. The locusts of Revelation 9 are not devils.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 10 :2</span><br /><br />Note (4) The keys to the kingdom of heaven are not just given to Peter but to all twelve disciples in Matthew 18 :18, including Judas.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 13 :11</span><br /><br />If Scofield wanted to name all things spoken of as a mystery in the Bible, he would have had to add a few more such as ``the mystery of the faith``(1 Timothy 3 :9) ; ``the mystery of his will``(Ephesians 1 :9) ; etc...<br /><br />But the Bible presents 7 mysteries per se. As Scofield lists them these are :<br /><br />(2) The mystery of Israel’s blindness (Romans 11 :25)<br />(3) The mystery of the translation of living and dead (not just living) saints of the church age ( 1 Corinthians 15 : 51-52, 1 Thessalonians 4 :13-18)<br />(4) and (5) are one and the same. That one body composed of Jew and Gentile is the body of Christ.<br />(6) The mystery of the inliving Christ (Colossians 1 :26-27)<br />(8) The mystery of Godliness ( 1 Timothy 3 :16)<br />(9) The mystery of iniquity ( 2 Thessalonians 2 :7)<br />(11) The mystery of Babylon (Revelation 17 :5,7)<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· Matthew 13 :17</span><br /><br />In wasn’t only ``what manner of time`` that the prophets searched to understand but also ``what`` the Spirit meant. 1 Peter 1 :11<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 17 :2<br /></span><br />(2) The explanation of the types is good but should be applied to the tribulation saints who get raptured, living and dead; and not to the church, whose type is Enoch.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Marc 16 :9</span><br /><br />The Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are the two most corrupt manuscripts ever found. One of them was found in a garbage bin. The contain uncountable emmendations, internal and external contradictions. The case has often been made, even through books, for the last 12 verses of Marc.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Marc 16 :14<br /></span><br />It is rather ironic that one should deny the literal reading of a verse whose very authenticity one has just doubted. The Holy Ghost said eleven because he meant eleven. He is referring to the twelve disciples minus Judas, which makes eleven.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Luke 11 :13</span><br /><br />Many forget that Martha also, not just Peter, confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. John 11 :27.<br /><br />·<span style="color:#cc0000;"> Luke 16 :23</span><br /><br />Hades always was a reference to the burning sector where the dead go and not an overall term designating both the abodes of the saved and lost.<br />``Hell`` is the Holy Ghost’s translation of ``Hades``and in every case refers to that part of the underworld where the lost go and are in torment in flames of fire.<br />Christ never adopted a single Talmudic designation a day in his earthly life.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· Luke 17 :21</span><br /><br />The « within » is wrongly contested because it is assumed that saying that the kingdom of God is within a group of people is equivalent to saying that they’re saved and therefore how could a bunch of unregenerate Pharisees be saved?<br />For one thing, salvation is when someone enters the kingdom of God, not when the kingdom of God enters them.<br />The « within » of the A.V. 1611 is shown to be accurate if one simply remembers the english meaning of the word « kingdom ». A kingdom designates a particular area or sphere of dominion.<br />All that the Lord is saying here is that the sphere of the kingdom of God is on the inside and not on the outside as is the case with the kingdom of heaven. This is clear for Paul defines the kingdom of God as follows in Romans 14:17 “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”<br />Those are all things whose sphere is “within”, not among. The Holy Ghost comes into believers, not among them or in their midst.<br /><br />The Lord is taking the Pharisees for a ride, because they did not divide between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, just like most of modern Christian scholarship. They specifically asked “when the kingdom of GOD should come” not the kingdom of heaven. So the Lord takes the opportunity to teach them a lesson in rightly dividing the word of truth by pointing out, in his own unique way, that that kingdom is spiritual and hence its targeted area is within them: their spirit and soul. That’s why it can only be entered by a spiritual, inner birth, as the Lord taught Nicodemus.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Luke 21 :20</span><br /><br />Verses 20 to 24 in Luke are just as much a reference to the final tribulation siege of Jerusalem as Matthew’s are.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">John 1 :18</span><br /><br />Not quite. Some men had seen the Son whom in the trinity, stands for the body, as the Holy Spirit stands for the spirit, and the Father for the soul. God’s soul no man has ever seen at any time.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Acts 9 :20</span><br /><br />Scofield is a way off here. For one thing, though the truth that Christ was God was plainly taught by Isaiah, it wasn’t believed, just like many other teachings of the prophets. Scofield’s note also creates the impression that everyone naturally believed that the Christ would be God the Son and that the only problem was identifying who’s the Christ.<br />Such an assumption is inexplicable given the gospel narrative. Contradicting the sense of the Authorized Version is a fundamentally spiritual problem rather than intellectual one. See Hebrews 5 :6 note.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Acts 19 :2</span><br /><br />The A.V. words are correct. The second part of the note is accurate.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">1 Corinthians 1 :8</span><br /><br />See also 2 Thessalonians 2 : 2 note.<br />The day of Christ does not relate exclusively ``to the reward and blessing of saints at His coming``. The expression covers the rapture of the church before the tribulation as well as the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of the tribulation.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">1 Corinthians 2 :13, Revelation 22 :19 (3 superscript)</span><br /><br />Here Scofield ignores the scriptures’ own testimony concerning the matter and buckles under scholarly pressure. See Hebrews 5 :6 note.<br />Watch how the credit due the Holy Ghost is transferred unto men and observe the inherent contradictions :<br />``The writers of Scripture invariably affirm, where the subject is mentioned by them at all, that the words (emphasis in original) of their writings are divinely taught. This of necessity, refers to the original documents, not to translations and versions; but the labours of competent scholars (emphasis mine) have brought our English version to a degree of perfection so remarkable that we may confidently rest upon them as authoritative.``<br /><br />A) Why it is of necessity is not explained, only assumed by natural reasoning, not taught by divine revelation.<br /><br />B) In more than one instance the scriptures bear testimony that a translation and a copy can be as inspired as the original authographs. If that were not the case, than the inspiration of the original document would be futile. Why would God inspire something he wouldn’t preserve?!<br /><br />C) What may be rested upon as authoritative according to Scofield are ``translations and versions``.<br />Yet ``the writers of Scripture affirm`` that their WORDS, not only the document as whole, are inspired, not simply ``authoritative``. There’s a huge difference between words and versions, and between inspired and authoritative. There’s a giant chasm between inspired words and authoritative versions, which chasm God would never allow to separate us from his words given his insistent emphasis that we need every word that proceeds out of his mouth to live!<br /><br />D) Why God would go through the trouble of inspiring the writings of ``holy men of old`` that people may read his pure words but leave scholars to fend for themselves in extracting those very words, without guiding them by his Holy Ghost in the process, is a mystery no scholar dares discuss. Maybe because those scholars weren’t ``holy men``...<br />Christians believe that they can’t get to heaven despite their best efforts, that they can’t live the Christian life outside the grace of God, that they can’t survive without the sustenance of God, and that without Jesus Christ they can do nothing; and yet, marvel of marvels, when it comes to God’s words, the subject dearest to his heart, they believe that God gets the ball rolling, then forever abandons men to rely on their own intellects and education, and efforts in order to retrieve his words which he allowed to fall by the way side some hundreds of years. That is nothing short of spiritual madness.<br /><br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">1 Corinthians 10 :8<br /></span><br />While there may be discrepancies in some Hebrew manuscripts, there aren’t any in the A.V. 1611. If there wasn’t a flawless Bible on earth today, the scripture would be broken (Psalm 12 :6-7, Matthew 24 :35, Mark 13 :31, Luke 21 :33)<br /><br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">1 Corinthians 15 :52</span><br /><br />To understand Scofield’s note one must remember that the ``first resurrection`` of Revelation of 20 :5 is compared to a harvest which has three phases : one resurrection of the first fruits, which took place after Jesus’ resurrection (Matthew 27 :52-53). That was a resurrection of SOME of the O.T. saints. Then there’s the main harvest which is the resurrection of the church ONLY. Finally there are the gleanings, which is the resurrection of the tribulation saints plus the rest of the O.T. saints who weren’t resurrected in Matthew 27 :52-53.<br />So Scofield is wrong in saying that the O.T. saints are raised up with the church. See also 1 Thessalonians 4 :17 note<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Ephesians 1 :3</span><br /><br />The note is completely arbitrary. Heaven is a literal, physical, geographical dimension, not an experience or a state. The born-again Christian is somehow literally represented in the third heaven, geographically (see Ephesians 2 :6) even while he lives bodily on the earth; similarly to Jesus Christ during his earthly life. See John 3 :13. The ``places`` is especially leading.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Philippians 1 :1</span><br /><br />Strictly speaking, it is not the local church that is the temple of God but the bodies of the believers.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">1 Thessalonians 4 :17<br /></span><br />Only church saints have a part in this resurrection. The first resurrection is not limited to the church’s resurrection. See 1 Corinthians 15 :52 note.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· 2 Thessalonians 2 :3<br /></span><br />(3) The classic interpretation has been that v.7 refers to the Holy Spirit who’s refraining the manifestation of the antichrist until he is taken out of the way.<br />But there’s no reference to the Holy Spirit in the context. According to Ruckman, there’s a cog in the wheel that’s keeping the man of sin from showing up as the son of perdition.<br />(2) The apostasy is not that of the professing church, which is inconsequential and senseless, but of the true church, hence Laodicea. See 1 Timothy 3 :15 note; 2 Timothy 3 :1 note.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">1 Timothy 3 :15</span><br /><br />Apostasy is never restricted to nominal Christianity in the Bible. To restrict apostasy to unbelievers is unscriptural, smacks of the fear of man, and underestimates the deceitfulness of the old nature in true believers. In fact, apostasy is exclusively used of saved believers who knowingly reject revealed scriptural truth. See 2 Timothy 3 :1 note; 2 Thessalonians 2 :3 note.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· 2 Timothy 3 :1</span><br /><br />In ``professed Christians``, cross out ``professed``. There’s no apostasy in the passage because Paul is talking about lost men. Scofield inserts his note on apostasy here because he limits apostasy to lost professing Christians, which is exactly the opposite view of the Bible. How apostates can ``depart from the faith``, which faith they never had to begin with, is not explained. Scofield simply has in mind lost people who once spoke as Christians and quit doing so. But revealing one’s true colours and apostasy are two widely different things.<br /><br /><br />The greatest apostasy within English-speaking Christianity today is the forsaking of the King James Bible and of the promises of God that he would preserve all his words through time and translations. See 1 Timothy 3 :15 note; 2 Thessalonians 2 :3 note.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Titus 1 :5</span><br /><br />(2) The bishop is the pastor. The elders are deacons. That one man was head is clear from the sheer fact that Paul charges one man, even Titus, to ordain the elders and does not leave their ordination to the elders themsevles. Moreover, Philippians 1 :1 mentions bishops and deacons. That the persons and their respective office is not meant but in fact two different offices, is obvious,. There are to be sure ``differences of administrations`` (1 Corinthians 12 :5) but Scofield’s Brethren affiliation is a little too evident.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Hebrews 1 :4</span><br /><br />Scofield is correct in drawing attention to the varied uses of the word ``angel`` in scripture. Another usage is that of appearance or representation.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Hebrews 5 :6</span><br /><br />Here we have a stupendous example of how the fleshly intellect of even a Christian of Scofield’s eminent stature can cause a man to disbelieve and over-rule the words of the living God. Scofield gives the interpretation of Melchizedek as being ``My king is righteous``. Yet the Holy Ghost himself defines it as first ``king of righteousness``, then ``king of peace`` in Hebrews 7 :2. The reason why Scofield gives ``my king is righteous`` is because he trusts secular etymology more than the revelation of the Holy Ghost. There can be no other explanation.<br />Arabic is this writer’s native tongue. In Arabic, a Shemitic language, as Hebrew, Melchizedek, as it stands, could mean ``my king is righteous`` but more so it could mean ``my reign is righteous``.<br />But Scofield might not have had access to that. The point is etymology which is not inspired is never completely authoritative because it is always controversial and shifting, so it is irrelevant when faced with the Bible’s own God-given definition.<br />The reference he gives, Isaiah 11 :5 is actually closer to Hebrews 7 :2 for the word there is ``righteousness``, not ``righteous``. But why Scofield gives Isaiah 11 :5 as a cross-reference instead of Hebrews 7 :2 is utterly bewildering. Truly, the problem is a spiritual and not an intellectual one.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Hebrews 6 :4</span><br /><br />Scofield fails here where most of Christianity does because of a lack of division.<br />Hebrews 6 :4-8 and Hebrews 10 :26-39 do indeed teach loss of salvation but not for the church age dispensation. Those passages deal with Jews who believe during the tribulation after the church has been raptured. The tribulation is a period wherein loss of salvation is possible because the law comes back just as it was in the Old Testament.<br />Failing to rightly divide the word of truth, Scofield had to explain away the passage since it clearly conflicted with the Pauline epistles and John’s gospel, which make it abundantly clear that a man cannot lose his salvation. But Paul is writing there to a church age believer, not a tribulation Jew as in Hebrews.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Hebrews 10 :5</span><br /><br />The note is essentially correct. The last sentence however is wrong. The variant form is simply adapted to the dispensation in question.<br />For instance : Isaiah 28 :16 says<br />``Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. ``<br />Paul quotes that in Romans 9:33 as<br />``As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.``<br /><br />There Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, applies Isaiah 28:16 to the salvation of Gentiles from hell by obtaining the free righteousness of God by faith.<br />However that is not ``the deeper meaning``of Isaiah 28:16. Isaiah is referring to the fact that Jews who believe the testimony of Jesus Christ during the tribulation won’t have to literally run away from ``the overflowing scourge`` of v.16 whereas those who covenanted with hell will.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Introduction to James</span><br /><br />James is not an epistle to Christians by any stretch. It was written before the Pauline epistles to ``the twelve tribes`` (James 1:1) of Israel. The context is Jewish and is doctrinally addressed to Jewish believers during the tribulation.<br />The author is James Zebedee, brother of John, who is martyred in Acts 12:2, not James the Lord’s brother.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">1 Peter 1:2, 1 Peter 1:20</span><br /><br />``But scripture nowhere declares what it is in the divine foreknowledge which determines the divine election and predestination.`` is another whopper. Scofield missed it because it was too simple. The criterion determined by God for election is faith in Jesus Christ. God decided before the foundation of the world that his criterion for choosing who gets saved would be faith in his Son. So those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ get forgiven and get predestinated to escape hell, get adopted as sons, end up in New Jerusalem in a mansion with a new body with Jesus Christ. ( John 1 :12, Romans 10 :13, Ephesians 1 :13 etc...)<br />So Scofield unwittingly answers himself when he says that ``this election is certain to every believer by the mere fact that he believes``.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">2 Peter 1 :19</span><br /><br />It is not more sure because it is fulfilled in part. That interpretation doesn’t make sense of the passage. Peter is comparing words. He’s saying that the written word in your Bible is more sure than the word he heard with his ears on the mount of transfiguration.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jude 11</span><br /><br />(Balaam) Scofield says that Balaam figured he could curse Israel because ``he was blind to the higher morality of the Cross.`` You can blame Balaam for a lot of things but that isn’t one of them. The cross wasn’t till 1500 years after Balaam. Scofield uncharacteristically here adopts that peculiar mindset of non-dispensational Christianity which makes salvation uniform throughout all the Bible. Nobody was ever saved by looking forward to the cross in the Old Testament. The disciples were missing the cross almost till they saw it, all the while being foretold by Christ.<br />If anyone was in effect so saved in the O.T. that would mean they differentiated between the first and second advent of Christ, which would contradict 1 Peter 1 :10-11 which states that they didn’t.<br />As far as God is concerned, when it comes to Israel’s enemies, Israel is sinless. Period. Yes all sins could only bee taken away by the blood of Christ 1500 years later, but many in Israel perished in that episode with Moab, and died lost because of their own sins. Knowing that would happen, God still refused to uphold Balaam’s curse against them.<br />Balaam was blind to the higher morality of God’s unconditional covenant with Abraham.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Revelation 13 :2<br /></span><br />Rome is the leopard. The three beasts preceed the kingdom of Antichrist which is Daniel’s 4th and divers beast and stems out of the Roman empire. See Daniel 7 :17 note.<br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Revelation 13 :16</span><br /><br />Scofield’s note is a bit confusing. The spirit of antichrist according to John denies that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and denies the Father and the Son.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">· Revelation 14 :6</span><br /><br />(2) The gospel of the grace of God is defined in 1 Corinthians 15 :1-4. The reference is surprisingly missing from such a long paragraph.<br />III. In Colosse the human merit which is mingled is not fanaticism but asceticism.<br /><br /><br />· <span style="color:#cc0000;">Revelation 18 :2</span><br /><br />The note is questionable. Larkin also differentiates between political and ecclesiastical Babylon but Ruckman doesn’t. One thing is sure, Babylon is a literal principality in the heavens and has a literal counterpart on earth. Revelation 17 clearly teaches that Babylon is Rome.<br /><br />. <span style="color:#cc0000;">Revelation 19 :8<br /></span><br />True, but here the verse is clearly referring to ``the righteousness of saints`` which is not saving righteousness but good works wrought by believers AFTER salvation. God’s righteousness clothes the inside, the righteousness of saints clothes the outside. (Psalm 45 :13-14)<br /><br /><br />. <span style="color:#cc0000;">Revelation 19 :17</span><br /><br />Armageddon is actually where the battle ends, not begins. The Lord lands first at Sinai and goes up fighting to Armageddon, which is the last and final clash before the millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ is established.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">. Revelation 19 :19</span><br /><br />``The day of the Lord`` has more than one application in the Bible depending on the context. It can refer to the great tribulation, the second advent, the end of the millennium, and sometimes even encompasses the rapture of the church before the tribulation.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">. Revelation 20 :11<br /></span><br />This is another such case as ``the day of the Lord``. ``The day of judgment`` can refer to the great tribulation, the second advent, or the great white throne judgment at the end of the millennium depending on the context. ``The day of destruction`` shows up once in Job 21 :30 and is a reference to the second advent.<br /><br />. <span style="color:#cc0000;">Revelation 22 :19 (4 superscript)<br /></span><br />(3) The recipient is not a ``new creation`` but a ``new creature``. He isn’t recreated he’s reborn.<br /><br /><br /></span><br /><br /><br /></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-12374211041964276282008-08-08T20:17:00.004-04:002008-08-08T20:33:47.651-04:00The weakness of God is stronger than men<span style="color:#cc0000;">1Corinthians 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. </span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">2Corinthians 13:4 For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.</span> </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The weakness of God is stronger than men; one of the first and last things Paul ever tells the Corinthians.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Colossians 2:14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;<br />:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.</span><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">I`m preaching the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.<br />When I say “the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ” I’m not referring to the fact that he was crucified by men. I’m referring to the fact that the whole operation belonged to him and was under his control. It was HIS crucifixion.<br /><br />Verses 14 and 15 of Colossians 2 burst with the glorious power of the crucified Son of God. There’s so much going in these few words it hurts to think about it. I do not claim to fully understand everything that’s going on here but I’d like to give you a sketch of the spiritual context before showing you a couple things that the Lord showed me in those verses.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><br />Colossians chapter 2 attacks with the intent to destroy 2 things : philosophy and religion. Paul presents philosophy as primarily the sphere of men and religion as primarily the sphere of angelic beings. If you understood the implications of that it would send a shiver or two up your spine. The central part of Colossians 2 hinges on the crucifixion of the Lord of glory. Philosophy and Religion are both destroyed in the cross.<br /><br />But tonight I want to preach on neither; both those things have gotten undeserved recognition. Look again at verses 14-15 and go back with me 2000 years in time. Or as far as God is concerned, 2 days ago.<br />I want to show you a couple of reasons why the Lamb is worthy of your worship.<br /><br /><br />Let me ask you a question. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">Colossians 2:14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;</span> </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">According to Paul, who’s doing the nailing?<br /><br />He is. He was giving the Roman soldiers the breath to live and the strength to pound the nails. “…in him we live and move and have our being” right? He was controlling their blood pressure, their breathing, their articulations… He was a carpenter. He had pounded nails all his life. “Friend, that nail is loose. Make it fast; more deft in the motion. Don’t forget my feet now, men sin with their feet too…”<br />Now if you think four rusty Roman nails could keep the Lord of glory stuck on a piece of wood you’re gravely mistaken. You say ‘nobody believes that’. Well every crucifix testifies to that belief in people. It occurred to me that some people may be so bent on having a cross with Jesus on it because they wish he never got off.<br /><strong>You don’t know who Jesus Christ is if you think Roman nails could pin down the one who pinned up the earth in the void of space.<br /></strong>He was doing the nailing. And he was nailing the coffin on our sin. Those nails were meant to keep our sin up against the cross, under the sun, then covered by darkness, lest it should crawl off the tree for shame. He bare our sins in his own body then he drove the nails of judgment through his own flesh. That’s the reason why you can have the promise of the redemption of your body, and not only of your soul: body for body, soul for soul.<br /><br />The Lord Jesus Christ is to be praised because the weakness of God is stronger than men.<br /><br />He made it his own cross.<br />He didn’t nail the handwriting of ordinances to a cross, he nailed it to <strong>his </strong>cross. He made that piece of wood his own. He took ownership of it. And why shouldn’t he? He had given that tree life. It wasn’t a cross that the Romans imposed upon him and it wasn’t a cross that the Jews imposed upon him. It was a cross that he nourished, it was a cross that he chose and it was a cross that he carried up Calvary’s mountain.<br />Going up Golgotha was not any more imposed upon Jesus Christ than going up in the way to Bethel was imposed upon Elisha by the little children when they mocked him, saying : Go up, thou bald head.<br />Have you ever encountered such people? You’re on your way out of the door and they say `go out the door` and feel proud that they commanded and you obeyed. That’s how it was with Jesus Christ. He was doing the will of his Father, having his face set like a flint. All the counsels and all the devices of all the hosts of heaven and earth, whether principalities or powers or thrones or dominions, or kings or princes or nobles or rulers or priests, were as immaterial to the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ as the commandment of the little children was to Elisha’s going up the way that he had set his face to go up.<br />If the Roman soldiers had refused to lift up that cross that morning, the Lord of glory would have lifted himself up by his bootstraps and planted that piece of wood into the cursed ground.<br />It was his operation, his crucifixion, his arena. By virtue of the word of his power the soil was his, the tree was his, Jerusalem was his, the soldiers were his, the priests were his, the hammer and nails were his, the spear was his, the crown of thorns was his and the atonement was ours! He set up the whole thing.<br /><br />He was completely, totally and utterly in control of the situation. That’s why he could afford so calmly to tell the daughters of Jerusalem to weep over themselves instead of him. Movies like “the Passion of the Christ” have the wrong emphasis. I’m waiting for the crucifixion movie that emphasizes the wretched sinfulness of man and the power of God to redeem.<br /><br />The Lord Jesus Christ won the heart of the battle a few hours before the cross. It was over the moment he got up off his knees in the garden of Gethsemane.<br />It’s because he got on his knees that he could bare his feet crucified. It’s because his elbows bore into the sod that he could bare his hands crucified. It’s because he bowed his head that he could bear it crowned with thorns. It’s because he sweat great drops of blood that he could bare having it all shed from his side.<br />The moment the Lord Jesus Christ got off those powerful knees of his in the garden, it was game over for Satan. Sports analysts always look for the turning point of a game. The Lord walks over to the disciples and says « Rise, let us be going ». There’s your turning point.<br /><br />Now when he said « I’m going to the cross » it wasn’t with any more trepidation than when he said « I’m going to my Father ».<br /><br />The Lord Jesus Christ is to be praised because the weakness of God is stronger than men.<br /><br />And one day, the Lord will tell us the same thing with the same voice of assurance « Rise, let us be going ». Meanwhile, as you’re waiting for him like the disciples did, you just find life so unbearable because you don’t bare serious prayer.<br /><br /></span><span style="color:#000066;"><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Colossians 2:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.<br /></span><br />Those principalities and powers are very much interested in keeping men under the bondage of religion. The Son of God delivered us from the fear of death and from the devil who had the power of death. Now <span style="color:#cc0000;">Colossians 2:15</span> is a snapshot of a brutal spiritual battle that I don’t quite understand. It is a broad verse.<br /><br />Boxers will sometimes offer to fight their opponent with one hand tied behind their back. The Son of God tied both his hands and feet and still made a publick spectacle of Satan’s heroes.<br /><br />Everything I am about to list is attested by a verse of scripture:<br /><br />They accused him of breaking the sabbath, he perfected atonement in the end of an high sabbath.<br />They conspired to cut off his name, he prayed to blot out theirs.<br />They said “this people who knoweth not the law are cursed”, he redeemed us from the curse of the law.<br />They judged him in the morning, he will judge them in the kingdom morning.<br />They asked “art thou the Son of the Blessed,” he said “he is my Father”.<br />They asked “what is truth?”, he said “I am the truth”.<br />They asked “art thou the king of the Jews?”, he said I am the King of Kings.<br />One asked “who is the LORD?”, he answered “what is man?”<br />They took him from prison, he preached delivrance to the captives.<br />They cried “Away with him”, he took out of the way the handwriting of ordinances.<br />They said his blood be upon us, he’ll rain blood upon them.<br />They gave him vinegar to drink, he’ll give them wormwood to drink.<br />They stripped him publickly, he made a shew of them openly.<br />They clothed him with a scarlet robe, he’ll clothe them with shame and dip his vesture in blood.<br />They crowned him with a crown of thorns, that same crown will flourish.<br />They handed him a reed, his rod will bud.<br />They beat him with the reed, he’ll break them in pieces with a rod of iron.<br />They bound him, he bound the strong man.<br />They led him away captive, he led captivity captive.<br />They made him bare the cross, he bore our sorrows and carried our griefs on top of it.<br />They hung him between two thieves, he will sit between Moses and Elijah.<br />They lift him up from the earth, he was taken up to heaven.<br />They tempted him to come down from the cross, he’s going to come down from heaven.<br />They nailed him, he nailed our sins.<br />They tore his flesh, he rent the veil.<br />They said we see, he covered the land with darkness.<br />They destroyed his temple, he rebuilt it in 3 days.<br />They spoiled him, he spoiled principalities and powers.<br />They gnashed upon him with their teeth and cast scorning in his, he’ll break the teeth of the ungodly and make his own white with milk.<br />They sealed his tomb, he sealed his saints.<br />They buried him, he resurrected.<br />They inclosed him in hell, he walked out with the keys.<br /><br /><strong>Because the weakness of God is stronger than men.</strong></span><br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-29858545738594936442008-06-11T11:41:00.010-04:002008-06-11T12:26:13.367-04:00Whose bow is it after all?Right after the flood, when Noah came forth out of the ark, he builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.<br /><br />And the Lord smelled a sweet saviour [BBQ lamb chops] and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake;<br /><strong>for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.</strong><br /><br />And God blessed Noah and spake to him saying behold I establish my covenant with you and your seed after you. This is the token of the covenant. I do set <strong>my bow</strong> in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.<br /><br />And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the <strong>everlasting covenant</strong> between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.<br /><br />The above are words compiled from the account of the Flood in Genesis Chapter 9. To me, it is quite clear that God put HIS bow in the cloud. He looks upon it and remembers a covenant He made towards ALL flesh (you and me included).<br /><br />God spoke of an "everlasting covenant". Today, the rainbow (or what God called "my bow") is used to tell a very different story.<br /><br />Can someone explain to me, please, how did we get from there to here. Or may be the Lord just knew what would happen, when close to five thousand years ago, he said <strong> the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. </strong>Consecratedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01379233856153699219noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-13321189968239257722008-06-06T21:49:00.008-04:002008-09-04T19:19:14.244-04:0013 in the Bible<p><span style="color:#000066;">The consistency of numerical patterns in the Bible is one of many infallible proofs of its inspiration. Remember the Bible is made up of 66 books written by 38 authors across 1800 years in 3 languages on 3 continents, by people of all walks of life writing against their own people and government. With this said, observe:</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>1.</strong> The 5 kings rebel against Chedorlaomer king of Elam in the <span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>13th</strong></span> year. (Genesis 14:4)</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong></strong><span style="color:#000000;"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#cc0000;"><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>2.</strong></span> <strong>13</strong></span> is Ishmael’s age when he was circumcised. Ishmael was “born after the flesh” (Galatians 4:29)<br /></p></span><p><span style="color:#000066;"></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>3.</strong> Haman’s commandment “to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, […]and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” was written on the <strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">13th</span></strong> day of the 1st month. The day for carrying out the commandment was to be year later to the day, on the <strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">13th</span></strong> of the 1st month, according to (Esther 3 <strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">verse 13</span></strong>). </span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>4.</strong> Nimrod, a type of the antichrist, is the <span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>13th</strong></span> from Adam (1 Chronicles 1:10)</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>5.</strong> Manasseh, the most evil king of Judah, is the <span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>13th</strong></span> king from the division of the kingdom.<br /></p></span><p><span style="color:#000066;"></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>6.</strong> It took Solomon 7 years to finish the house of God (1 Kings 6:38). He spends <span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>13 </strong></span>years on his own house. ( 1 Kings 7:1)</span></p><span style="color:#000066;"></span><span style="color:#000066;"><p><br /></p><p><strong>7.</strong> Jeremiah begins prophesying in the <span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>13th</strong></span> year of Josiah. The Jews never hearken to him (Jeremiah 1:2, 25:3)<br /></p></span><p><span style="color:#000066;"></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>8.</strong> Jesus lists<strong><span style="color:#cc0000;"> 13</span></strong> evil things that proceed out of a man’s heart in Mark 7:21-22 </span></p><span style="color:#000066;"><p></p><p><strong>9·</strong> Rome shows up as the <strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">13</span></strong>th region in Acts 2:10.<br /><br /></p><p><strong>10.</strong> The beast shows up in Revelation <span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>13</strong></span>.<br /></p><p></p><p><strong>11.</strong> “Dragon” appears<strong><span style="color:#cc0000;"> 13</span></strong> times in Revelation.</p><p></p><p><strong>12·</strong> Dagon (god of the philistines and one letter removed from dragon) appears <span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>13</strong></span> times in<br />the Bible.<br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-60168008243079832682008-05-23T13:10:00.006-04:002008-05-23T13:45:50.205-04:00You need a drink<span style="color:#000066;">Open<br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 4:10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.</span><br /><br />The Lord Jesus Christ is no pusher. He doesn’t push eternal life on anybody.<br />Jesus Christ is a puller.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 12:32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.<br /><br />Hosea 11:3 I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.<br />:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.<br /></span><br />If you only knew who is that God that has kept you alive by his grace so far. If only your eyes were opened to know him. I want your eyes to be opened by God.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Romans 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?</span><br /><br />He hasn’t kept you alive that you might go on sinning. He told the woman taken in adultery “go and sin no more”.<br />He hasn’t healed you that you might sin the better, he told the old man by the pool “sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. “<br /><br />He hasn’t kept you alive because you’re such an intelligent swell guy. He’s kept you alive hoping that finally you’d wake up and realize who he is and what you are; that you might look upon thy maker, thy redeemer, and give him your heart; that he may obtain the reward of his suffering, even your soul, your love, your loyalty, your obedience, your praise.<br /><br />A man may ask ``well about the hard times I’ve suffered``, where was God’s goodness there? Assuming you weren’t reaping what you sowed I’ll tell you this: you’ve all heard the expression<br /><br /><em>You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.</em> </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><br />In days gone by, our forefathers knew that if a horse had been sick and is weak and in danger of going down, you could put a little salt in his oats and that salt would draw it to the watering trough and make it drink.<br /><br />That’s how the Lord God deals with many people because they’re too drugged up to feel their thirst and that they`re are about to die of dehydration! So he’ll do anything he can to draw you to the water of life without denying the free will he gave you.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">:13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:</span><br /><br />The more you drink alcohol the more you thirst. It’s a cruel master. The more you serve it the less it feeds you.<br />The more you smoke the less you breathe.<br />The more you consume the less you’re filled.<br /><br />Whosoever drinketh of this water SHALL thirst again.<br /><br />That’s not some psychologist’s opinion. That’s a statement of fact uttered by the Creator of heaven and earth.<br /><br />He’s saying, buddy if you ain’t got me, you’ll go back to it, every time, just as sure as a man goes for water when he’s thirsty.<br /><br />Whosoever drinketh of this water SHALL thirst again.<br /><br />Don’t get fooled now, it won’t be “just this once”, it won’t be “one last time”, it won’t be “one more binge then I’ll quit”.<br /><br />Why? Because: Whosoever drinketh of this water SHALL thirst again.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.<br /></span><br />That’s literal. Spiritual doesn’t mean not-literal.<br /><br />Open<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.<br />:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.<br />:39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)</span><br /><br />Here you have the Lord God of heaven and earth standing in the midst of a monstrous religious ceremony and as he looks around he perceives that his creation is dying of spiritual thirst! Smack dab in the middle of a national religious festival.<br />Everything in him wants to bring this madness to a screeching halt. STOP THAT STOP IT, ENOUGH.<br />Aghast at the madness of men, he rushes up, stands in a visible place and shouts with all the strength in his lungs:<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">IF ANY MAN THIRST, LET HIM COME UNTO ME, AND DRINK. HE THAT BELIEVETH ON ME, AS THE SCRIPTURE HATH SAID, OUT OF HIS BELLY SHALL FLOW RIVERS OF LIVING WATER.</span><br /><br />The Lord Jesus Christ has been glorified. He has been received up into glory after his resurrection and is right now seated on the right hand of the Father in the third heaven.<br /><br />And the offer is more valid today, it is more urgent today than ever it was. And that offer is not eternal.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 58:11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.<br /><br />Isaiah 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.<br />:2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.<br />:3 Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.<br /></span><br />For you it is free, but for the Lord it wasn’t. Your salvation from hell cost him his blood. He payed for your soul with his own lifeblood.<br />Christians sing an hymn which says “great price of my pardon his own precious Son”. I love that line.<br />Now you can simply walk up and buy those waters. The currency is the blood of the Lamb of God. It buys full and eternal forgiveness of sins. It never gets depreciated, just underappreciated.<br /><br />That’s some expensive water, and unlike Evian, it’s worth it. You’ll never thirst again.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 2:12 Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.<br />:13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.</span><br /><br />God doesn’t invoke the witness of the earth. The world, as usual, doesn’t care.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 1 [10] He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.<br /></span><br />That woman had the glory of everlasting life staring her in the eyeballs through the eyes of a man, never suspecting that salvation could be as easy as meeting a man, who happened to be God.<br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><br />[11] He came unto his own, and his own received him not.</span><br /><br />Some knew who he was and rejected him. Do you know why men don’t like the idea of God becoming man. Because it brings God so near that his holiness is too close for comfort. It reveals God as a personal God, interested in your thoughts and actions. That’s too close for comfort for those who love darkness. So they reject the light of the world. They love filthiness, so they reject the water of life.<br /><br />The Lord set up things so that all life depends on water that comes from above. If your land is thirsty then you’re scanning the heaven for clouds of hope. He made it that way to teach mankind a spiritual lesson: life depends on heaven for water. (Just like it does for light)<br /><br />Remember the verse<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 12:32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.<br /></span><br />He was lifted up from the earth by a tree: the cross.<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 19 :34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.</span><br /><br />The water which came from his side came from above.<br /><br />The word of God calls Jesus Christ "<span style="color:#cc0000;">the dayspring from on high<span style="color:#000066;">"</span> </span><span style="color:#cc0000;">Luke 1:78<br /></span><br />You know where some of you are stuck? You’re stuck at the well, like that woman. You’re looking down to quench your thirst, just like that woman.<br />Pick up that cigarette butt out of the garbage, pick up that coin on the street, pick up that needle on the ground…You shall thirst again.<br /><br />You can’t make a horse drink and you can’t make a pig look up. Did you know that? Their skeletal structure is designed to look down and move sideways. They can only lift their heads to see 70 degrees from the ground.<br /><br />What about you?<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 2:13 they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters,</span><br /><br />He was offering the living waters for free, yet they chose rather to work for them, breaking their backs to hew cisterns that could hold no water.<br /><br />He said ``two evils``: ingratitude and folly.<br /><br />Empty cisterns were used as prisons. So Joseph was cast into a "pit" (<span style="color:#cc0000;">Genesis 37:22</span>); Jeremiah into one miry at the bottom, and so deep that he was let down by cords (<span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 38:6</span>)<br /><br />Cisterns yield only a limited supply of water, not an overflowing spring. The stonework of tanks often becomes broken, and the water leaks into the earth; and, at best, the water is not fresh long.<br />The cistern would hold you captive but let the water escape.<br />Joseph and Jeremiah cried their hearts out to be delivered.<br /><br />What moldy, stagnant water are you drinking: Alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling?<br /><br />What cistern are you building around you? Often the wells are more outwardly beautiful on the outside than drugs and alcohol but just as filthy on the inside. What’s your golden sewer?<br />Religion? Philosophy? Education? Science? Politics? Morality?<br />Congratulations, you’re choosing and building your own private prison.<br /><br />The Lord’s heart is breaking. Crucified, his side poured out blood then water.<br /><br />You don’t get to taste the water of life until you’ve been washed in the blood of its author.<br />Yet the Lord Jesus Christ is ignored, rejected, lightly esteemed, by men who are dying of thirst; men who would rather toil and drink their own sweat than confess their wretchedness.<br />What’s wrong with a man admitting the truth? “Lord, I’ve tried it all, and it’s a cruel mess that I’ve made of my life. I’m thirstier today then ever I was. I’m tired of trying to find satisfaction my way. Here am I, a sinful, rebellious fool. That book says you can satisfy my deep thirst and forgive all my sins. Lord Jesus, please give me of that water of yours, save me from the flames of hell and from my own wretchedness!”<br /><br />What’s wrong with that?<br /><br />But there are many who would rather drink sewage water than pray such a prayer from the heart to the Lord Jesus Christ.<br />Well to you I say; don’t be surprised if the Lord treats you as a sewage rat on the day of the judgment.<br />Remember the rich man in hell, who begged to have Lazarus dip his finger in water and cross over to touch his tongue. If your tongue won’t ask for the living water that the Lord Jesus Christ offers you so freely today, rest assured that you will spend eternity panting for water.<br /><br />You know what that woman ended up doing after meeting Jesus Christ in person? Look at verse<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">[28] The woman then left her waterpot,</span><br /><br />She left her water pot. Some of you just can’t let go of that "pot". She just didn’t need it anymore; she wasn’t dependent on it anymore. She had drunk of the fountain of living waters.<br />Some of you here just can’t seem to let go of your sin, of your addiction.<br />You’re never going to <em>lose</em> your addiction; you’re going to have to<em> leave</em> it.<br /><br />But you know what your problem is? You’ve never met Jesus Christ in person yet. You’ve never had a head-on collision with him. You still think he’s a great Jewish man who showed up 2000 years ago in dusty Israel. You still don’t get who he is and you still don’t know the gift of God.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">So many folks say they ask for salvation everynight. Have you ever called on the Lord Jesus Christ to save you?</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">"Oh sure, everynight I do".</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Buddy, YOU SHALL THIRST AGAIN.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Salvation is one-time deal. It is a single drink. Jesus Christ said that you "shall never thirst".</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">If you ask to be forgiven and saved from hell every night it's because you're still drinking the wrong water. You're still stuck at the well, having to go back and forth to draw out dead water.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Only once did water come out of the Lord's side. Only once do you need to drink. I had that drink back in the Spring of 1989. Praise God I'm still satisfied.</span><span style="color:#000066;"><br /></span><span style="color:#000066;"></span><span style="color:#000066;">Your problem is that you're still depending on your self, on your ability to go out to the well and return, day in day out. You had better bring the fountain of living waters to you and get it in you because one day your body will give out and collapse. Receive Jesus Christ by faith into your heart; you'll never have to go to that well again.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><br />Now to the believers here I’d like to say that Jesus Christ only ever asked for 2 things in his life. Both times it was for a drink of water. He never got either.<br />He never got it from that woman, and he never got it on the cross when he said "I thirst". Too many of you are concerned with what Jesus Christ can do for you and you never think of what you could do for him.<br /><br />To the rest I’d like to say this:<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 4:10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.<br /></span><br /><br />Salvation is as easy as drinking a glass of water. Some of you philosophical types die of thirst while debating whether the glass is half-empty or half-full. The water won’t do you any good in the glass. You could even bathe in a fountain and still die of thirst. The water’s got to get in you.<br /><br />(Drink)<br /><br />You can stick 60 000 things in your mouth but you can’t drink a cup of the water of life?!<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Romans10: 8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.</span><br /><br />Some of you can smell a good deal a mile off. But the natural man is so spiritually deficient he can’t spot eternal life and satisfaction for free when it’s staring him in the eyeballs.<br /><br />One hell-bound sinner, after having licked-up the barrel’s bottom, sat down in his misery and wrote:<br />“I can’t get no satisfaction”. And just to prove it to you he repeats the chorus a dozen times. Of course the devil does everything with style. He gives the guy a nice tune to go with the words and watches as millions of miserable pitiful wretches sing themselves to death. <br /><br />What a loser. I got my satisfaction; my Lord Jesus.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><br />Born-again Christians sing a hymn called "<a href="http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/s/a/satsfied.htm">Satisfied</a>".</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><span style="color:#000066;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-26834645341003377412008-05-23T00:55:00.005-04:002008-05-23T02:47:10.703-04:00Wrap up<span style="color:#000066;">So you've seen how God used <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:30</span> to set-up such a predicament as necessitated a supernatural birth to be solved. Interestingly, that is precisely the issue wherein the Jews dishonoured Jesus Christ when things got heated between them; his birth. Observe:</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 8:41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, <strong>We be not born of fornication</strong>; <span style="color:#000066;">(i.e. like you are)</span> we have one Father, even God. </span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">And</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 8:48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that <strong>thou art a Samaritan</strong>, and hast a devil? </span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Now God in his mercy had made it easier for Israel to believe the fulfilment of <span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 7:14</span>, as we've seen before, through the very bind in which he put them. By taking away the kingdom, and rejecting the seed royal, he put them in such a bind wherein their only hope out was to believe the supernatural birth of Jesus as the Christ, the King of the Jews.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Now here's where it gets even more interesting for today's dispensation. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">What God did to Israel with the kingship, he's done today with the priesthood. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Hosea 3:4 For the children of Israel shall abide <strong>many days</strong><span style="color:#000066;"> (try 2000 years on for size) </span>without a king, and without a prince, and <strong>without a sacrifice</strong>, and without an image, and<strong> without an ephod</strong>, and without teraphim:</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">No king = no kingdom.<br />No sacrifice, no ephod = no priesthood!<br /></span><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Today the Jews have no temple-service, no priests, no sacrifices, no levites. They've got Rabbis galore, but no priests. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Now watch this</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, <strong>I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me</strong>: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Compare that rejection with Coniah's<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:24 As I live, saith the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence;</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><strong><em><span style="color:#cc0000;">Hosea 4:6</span> is to the priesthood what <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:30</span> is to the kingdom!</em></strong></span><br /><strong><em><span style="color:#000066;"></span></em></strong><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Allright so when did <span style="color:#cc0000;">Hosea 3:4</span> and <span style="color:#cc0000;">4:6</span> get fulfiled? Not in Hosea's time. Israel continued to have temple-service and a priesthood well after Hosea. So when did those verses come into play?</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Follow the thread carefully.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 24:1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.<br />:2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 2:18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?<br />:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.<br />:20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?<br />:21 But he spake of the temple of his body.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The false witness that precipitates Jesus' condemnation had to do with</span> <span style="color:#cc0000;">John 2:19</span><span style="color:#000066;"> IN RELATION TO THE TEMPLE.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">See </span><span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 26:59-66</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Soon thereafter Jesus Christ was led out and crucified. That was 33 A.D. Not 40 years after, in 70 A.D. , Titus came up against Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, fulfiling<span style="color:#cc0000;"> Matthew 24:2</span>.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Enter <span style="color:#cc0000;">Hosea 3:4</span> and <span style="color:#cc0000;">4:6</span>.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">They rejected Jesus as King so they lost the kindgom and the land.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">They rejected Jesus as Priest so they lost the priesthood and the temple.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Now think about this my Jewish friend, and ponder well. If Jesus was born of fornication, as many Jews still believe today, then the Lord God sure went out of his way to make a bastard look like the Christ by making him fit all the SCRIPTURAL prerequisites for the kingship and priesthood! </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">God today has placed you in a predicament where the only place you could find a high priest is by receiving Jesus Christ as High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, not Aaron, as prophecied in</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 110:4 The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, <strong>Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.</strong></span><strong> </strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Compare that with "</span><span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>thou shalt be no priest to me</strong></span><span style="color:#000066;">"</span> <span style="color:#cc0000;">Hosea 4:6</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Already the change of priesthood was foreshadowed so that when it came you'd recognize it, just like he did for the seed royal!</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">He's forcing you to look to heaven. That's God's mercy again at work. Do you know what your problem is, my Jewish friend? It's that you're a Catholic at heart. Just like Catholics read and believe the Catechism instead of the Bible, you read and believe the Talmud instead of the Bible.</span> <span style="color:#000066;">You don't know the writings of your own prophets.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge,</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">I'll close with Coniah.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Instead of calling him "Jeconiah" like he does in <span style="color:#cc0000;">1 Chronicles 3:16</span> and <span style="color:#cc0000;">2 Chronicles 36:8</span> the Lord simply calls him "Coniah" in <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:24,28</span>. He takes the "<strong>JE</strong>" out of his name, as in "<strong>JE</strong>hovah". The next time "<strong>JE</strong>" shows up in the royal line is in "<strong>JE</strong>sus"! Meaning "JAH saves".</span><br /><br /><p><span style="color:#000066;">Food for thought.</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">So here's the conclusion of the matter, dear Jewish friend:</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">instead of the seed of Coniah, God gave you the seed of the Holy Ghost, and instead of the order of Aaron, God gave you the order of Melchizedek.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><br /></p><div align="center"><span style="color:#000066;"><br /><br /><span style="FILTER: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Glow(Color=#FF0000, Strength=5); WIDTH: 100%">THIS IS JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS</span><br /><br /><br /><br /></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-81790917197475855032008-05-03T00:18:00.009-04:002008-05-07T00:56:22.811-04:00Contradiction solved<span style="color:#000066;">The problem is solved in <span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 1:16</span> though the hint to the solution was given about 700 years prior. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 7:13</span> </span><span style="color:#cc0000;">And he said, Hear ye now, <strong>O house of David</strong>; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?<br />:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, <strong>a virgin shall conceive</strong>, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">That's the kind of verse that's loaded with 7000 tons of TNT, made in heaven.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">This was written by the prophet Isaiah some years before Jeremiah ever wrote what he wrote concerning Coniah. And that's part of the beauty of the word of God: it sometimes gives you the solution to a problem that hasn't come up yet. Here's what you want to notice:</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">1) The attention of the house (family) of David is specifically requested. Not of the whole world, not of Israel, not of the priests and Levites, but that of the "house of David". So the house of David is especially concerned. You are to understand that it wasn't written just for the house of David that was then, but to all those who are of the house of David that should come in the future.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">2) It's a sign. That means the hebrew scholars who told you that the hebrew word correctly translated as "virgin" can and should be translated as "maiden", aren't too bright.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Last I checked, it wasn't a SIGN that a young woman should get pregnant. It is however when a virgin conceives while remaining a virgin. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">3) It's a sign given by "the Lord himself". Moses and a bunch of prophets gave signs, but this one is special. It's directly from God, no intermediary. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">So do let us imagine for a moment that you're a Jew (as abominable as the thought may be to you) living in...oh, 15 B.C. You sit down and begin to read the prophet Isaiah. And you hit this passage there. What's a believing Jew expected to get out of it? Well, you're supposed to be looking for a virgin who's in the lineage of David, and therefore of the tribe of Judah, who gets pregnant without knowing any man. She's supposed to bear a man-child whose name means God is with us (<span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 1:23</span>). Get it? GOD, G-O-D, GOD, is with us. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Now here comes your gentile friend on his dromedary. "First off, that a virgin should conceive is crazy. If she did, I'd worship her and call her queen of heaven, full of grace, co-redemptrix, queen of angels, mother of God, er... I mean mother of believers, all-holy, all-blessed, save me at the hour of my death amen.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Besides, I know where you're going with this, but many men in the Bible had the name of God as part of their name, yet none of them was God himself, otherwise you'd have 1000 gods".</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">"True", says you, "but that's because they had human fathers who gave them their human nature. This 'Immanuel' here doesn't. Who's his father?"</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">"Don't you know that in 2100 years we'll have the know-how to allow a woman to conceive a child on her own, without the help of any man?!"</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">"So you believe that WE could get a virgin to conceive, yet God couldn't? Am I understanding you correctly?"</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">"Ehem..."</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">"Besides, that know-how only allows women to bear women. This virgin conceived a man-child"</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">"Listen, friend, the sun is a burning and my dromedary is chewing his tongue for thirst, catch you later"</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">So</span><span style="color:#000066;"> you get the picture...no dad, yet he's "God" with us. Where did he get his divine nature from?</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Mary! Cry the cardinals. Nice try. She wasn't divine and a woman has no seed. Biology 101.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">You go on to read the entire book of Isaiah over the week, and the following week you get into Jeremiah, writing some decades later.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">And you hit </span><span style="color:#cc0000;">J</span><span style="color:#cc0000;">eremiah 22:29-30.</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.<br />Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.</span> </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The dead end of the messianic line. The dreadful, forbidden verse of every Bible disbelieving, Catechism-reading Pharisaical Jew on earth. And this time, it ain't only the house of David that should listen up but the entire EARTH EARTH EARTH.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Shem, Ham, Japheth. Now you begin to scratch your head. Why is it of such concern to the entire planet that the messianic line of the kings of Judah has reached a dead-end?</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">It's not like the messiah was supposed to be God himself...</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Capich?</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">A shimmer of light has pierced through the darkness of your soul.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Quickly spiritual darkness attempts to reflood the path that was blazed.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">But how could the messiah be God if he is the seed of man? </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">He isn't. A) He is </span><span style="color:#cc0000;">"OF the seed of David" - 2Timothy 2:8</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">B) He is "</span><span style="color:#cc0000;">MADE OF the seed of David <strong>according to the flesh</strong>" - Romans 1:3</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">C) He </span><span style="color:#cc0000;">"COMETH OF the seed of David" - John 7:42</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Physically, Christ got his <strong>body</strong> from David through Mary. The end.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Spiritually, he got his <strong>nature</strong> from God, being God's seed.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Your mind goes back to <span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 7:14</span> under a new light. He said it's a sign. That a virgin should conceive is a miracle, granted. But then what? You're missing the point (thrust, sign) of it if you only stop there. What is that virgin birth pointing to? I don't pretend to know the full answer. In fact I'm pretty sure I'm missing something. But here's what you have: if messiah is born of a virgin, then he is no man's seed. Remember Isaiah said "</span><span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>the Lord himself shall give</strong> you a sign</span>".<br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 9:6</span> <span style="color:#000066;">says<br /></span><span style="color:#cc0000;">For unto us a child is born, unto us a son<strong> is given</strong>: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.<br /></span><br /><br /><p><span style="color:#000066;">Who gave that "<span style="color:#cc0000;">son</span>", Isaiah? "<span style="color:#cc0000;">the Lord himself</span>".</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">How shall this be</span>, asked Mary</span>, <span style="color:#cc0000;">seeing I know not a man?</span> <span style="color:#cc0000;">Luke 1:34</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Luke 1:35 And the angel answered and said unto her, <strong>The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee</strong>: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called <strong>the Son of God</strong>. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Luke 8:11 Now the parable is this: <strong>The seed is the word of God.</strong> </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and <strong>the Word was God</strong>.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Revelation 19:13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and <strong>his name is called The Word of God. </strong></span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Luke 8:11 Now the parable is this: <strong>The seed is the word of God</strong>. </span><br /></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">So here's the import of the sign of <span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 7:14</span>:</span></p><p><strong><em><span style="color:#000066;">The messiah was God's seed, not man's seed. So it didn't matter if Coniah's seed got cursed.</span></em> </strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">YOU WOULD HAVE HAD HALF A PROBLEM HAD YOU INITIALLY BELIEVED IN THE DEITY OF THE MESSIAH.</span> </p><p><span style="color:#000066;"></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">The house of David would've recognized its import when they hit <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:30</span>, if they had believed <span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 7:14</span> to be begin with. The sign was given to them. It's not just that some Jewish virgin somewhere got pregnant on her own; it's that that pregnancy is the answer to the establishment of the Davidic covenant, so don't worry about Coniah, God will come through.</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;"></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">(The Roman Catholic gentile mind-set is simply dazzled by the miracle itself. If you fail to see the fulfilment of God's words therein, and the establishment of his plans, you're missing the boat. And when the antichrist shows up with his miracles, you'll just be dazzled by the phenomena and enquire more of them than of the words of God. And you'll damn your soul to hell by believing antichrist's SHOWbusiness.)</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">After<span style="color:#cc0000;"> Jeremiah 22:30</span> all of Israel, let alone the house of David, should've been busy praying, fasting and searching for a pregnant virgin having understood its relevancy to the kingdom of Israel. If you think I'm stretching things I've got 2 names for you: Simeon and Anna (<span style="color:#cc0000;">Luke 2:25,36</span>)</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Now for the other half: to be the Christ (messiah) Jesus still has to be in Coniah's line. So how does Jesus, being Christ, lay claim to the throne of David? Simple: <strong>adoption</strong>. He lays claim to the throne through Joseph, who is the son of Coniah in <span style="color:#cc0000;">Matthew 1</span>.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">God put in place 2 safe-guards to make sure no other human being could ever rightfully lay claim to David's throne except Jesus Christ.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">1) He killed one branch of the royal seed (Zedekiah and sons) and cursed the other (Coniah and sons). So one way to be disqualified was to actually be qualified. That's God's wisdom. And it works.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">2) And just in case anybody else got the idea of getting adopted to escape the curse on Coniah's seed, God said that the Messiah had to be the seed of God himself. (<span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 7:14, 9:6, Psalm 2:7, 110:1</span>)</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Now I could add 3) here just for overkill.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Technically the true King of Israel is God himself.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 44:6 Thus saith <strong>the LORD the King of Israel</strong>, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.</span> </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">So simply by virtue of being God's Son (<span style="color:#cc0000;">see Psalm 110:1</span>) Jesus Christ could have superseded any claimant from any angle.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">But God always honours his word, the Bible, and so as he prophecied, so he fulfiled.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The Lord God ALWAYS honours his word, his words, and his Word.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">One last installement coming.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /></p><span style="color:#000066;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-7884898652131460422008-04-29T00:57:00.013-04:002008-04-30T14:21:40.026-04:00My favourite contradiction in the bible<span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?<br />:29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.<br />:30 Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah. </span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The man here called Coniah is Jehoiachin, also called Jeconiah; he was of the seed of David, was one of the last kings of Judah, did evil, and was carried into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">According to the covenant God made with David, only the seed of David could rightfully rule on the throne of David, the throne of Israel, for ever. <span style="color:#cc0000;">2 Samuel 7:11-29</span>.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The line of kings which rightfully ruled on that throne is referred to as "the seed royal". (<span style="color:#cc0000;">2 Kings 11:1, 25:25; 2 Chronicles 22:10; Jeremiah 41:1</span>).</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">The messiah was to be of the seed of David (<span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 132:11; Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15; John 7:42; Romans 1:3; 2 Timothy 2:8</span>). He was to be king of Israel according to numerous references like <span style="color:#cc0000;">Isaiah 9:7</span> and <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 23:5</span>. <strong>So he had to come from the line of the seed royal, not just from any seed of David, in order to have claim to the throne</strong>.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><em><span style="color:#000066;">Now watch how the Lord worked to create an <strong>air-tight</strong> Biblical "problem text". You read right. He designed it.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span></em><br /><span style="color:#000066;">He has Jeremiah "curse" king Coniah's seed from ruling over David's throne. So from whence will the messiah come? Not to worry. Coniah wasn't the last king of Judah, his father's brother, Zedekiah was. (<span style="color:#cc0000;">2 kings 24:15-17</span>). And he had sons! Praise the Lord! One of Zedekiah's sons will reign and the messiah's line will not be jeopardized by <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:30</span>. Glory.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">2Kings 25:6 So they took the king<em> (Zedekiah)</em>, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him.<br />2Ki 25:7 <strong>And they slew the sons of Zedekiah</strong> before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to </span></span><span style="color:#cc0000;">Babylon.<br /></span><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Ouch. The last official king with any sons remaining is now Coniah, who had 7 of them (<span style="color:#cc0000;">1 Chronicles 3:17-18</span>). Yet with <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:30 </span><span style="color:#000066;">the Lord God</span> barred all of them from ruling in Judah on the throne of David. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"><strong>He deliberately set-up the extermination of all of Zedekiah's sons and the abdication of all of Coniah's sons in order to seal the paradox!</strong> </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">That <strong>7</strong> stands for <strong>a perfect dead end</strong>.<br /></span><span style="color:#000066;">No way out of that one. Wonderful.</span><br /><br /><p><span style="color:#000066;">Now this plot is even more intricate for the Lord uses the devil’s wrath to get his set-up (<span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm 76:10</span>). The devil had had the prophecy of <span style="color:#cc0000;">Genesis 3:15</span> in mind ever since it was said to the serpent.<br />“<span style="color:#cc0000;">And I will put enmity between thee <em><span style="color:#000066;">(the serpent)</span> </em>and the woman, and between thy seed <span style="color:#000066;"><em>(the serpent’s)</em></span> and her seed <span style="color:#000066;"><em>(the messiah)</em></span>; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel</span></span><span style="color:#cc0000;">.</span><span style="color:#000000;">”</span></p><span style="color:#000066;"><p><br />As you read the book of <span style="color:#cc0000;">Genesis</span> you discover a relentless war on the part of the devil against the line God had chosen to bring forth Christ as to the flesh. You find him either attempting to mingle his own seed into the line, or closing wombs, or defiling a man’s seed in various ways, or downright killing him. </p><p>Why? Because he knew God had in mind to bring forth a man-child from a certain line which would one day crush Satan’s head under his heel and he didn’t appreciate the prospect. <strong>You see the devil is no idiot when it comes to the Bible. He believes it. He just wants YOU not to believe it.</strong> So when Nebuchadnezzar kills the sons of Zedekiah, you could look in the deep left corner, and there in the shadow descry the shifting figure of the old serpent. His hand was in it. Nebuchadnezzar is presented in the Bible as a type of the antichrist: the devil incarnate. Just like the devil is a dragon, Nebuchadnezzar is spoken of as a dragon. (<span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 51:34</span>). I’m pretty sure that the day Zedekiah’s sons were killed, the old serpent held a party, for he knew about <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:30</span> and the disqualification of Coniah’s sons. At last, all branches had been severed and seared.<br /><br /><br />So why did the Lord allow that to happen? Well, he executes vengeance against the evil house of Zedekiah and his sons using the devil as executioner (all too happy to carry out the business for his own reason), and by the same token set-up a contradiction that he alone can solve in order to</p><p><br />a) Solve it and be glorified</span></p><p><br /><span style="color:#000066;">b) Put the Jews in such a predicament so as to make it easier for them to receive Jesus as the prophecied messiah. (We’ll see how later)<br /></span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">c) Give Bible-critics an excuse to scorn the word of God</span> </p><br /><span style="color:#000066;">So now imagine you're an Old Testament Jew. You've got a monumental paradox on your hands. And I mean <strong>MONUMENTAL</strong>. According to one prophecy, the messiah had to come from the royal line. That means he had to come from Coniah. But according to another prophecy he couldn't come from Coniah. </span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Now how's that for a Biblical contradiction you Bible-haters?!</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Boy wouldn't you have looooooved to get a hold of that one back in 50 B.C. And I'm sure your spiritual ancestors did too; assuming they read enough to find it. Give us a real challenge for once you intellectual anemics.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">It took about 700 years for the predicament to be marvelously solved by the the Holy Ghost.</span> <span style="color:#000066;"><strong>Literally!</strong></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">And the hint to the solution was written before <span style="color:#cc0000;">Jeremiah 22:30</span>.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><span style="color:#000066;">Come back soon.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /></p><span style="color:#000066;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-45215209474679440512008-04-25T02:28:00.037-04:002008-05-07T00:45:43.305-04:00Halt, you're at the point of death<div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="left"><br /><a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV2&byte=4539837"><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">Mark 5</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">: 23 And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at <strong>the point of death</strong>: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV2&byte=4773937"><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">John 4</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;"> :47 When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at <strong>the point of death</strong>.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">“The point of death” is a literal expression. According to the Holy Spirit of God, the difference between life and death is a point; a single point.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">In many sports an overtime game is played in “sudden death”. The difference between a win or a loss in “sudden death” is a single point. Whoever scores it first wins. </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="left"><br />Some of you are playing in overtime with your life. But that’s just the problem: you’re under the threat of sudden death and you’re playing, playing around.<br />The Lord has extended your time beyond regulation, hoping that you will trust your soul to the shed blood of Jesus Christ in order to escape the damnation of hell, yet you’re still just playing around. The eternal destiny of your soul is no game.<br /><br />Aircraft pilots talk about the “<strong>point</strong> of no return” because they perceive that the difference between the reversible and the irreversible is as small as a point. </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The expression “the point of no return” comes from aviation.<br />It refers to the point on a flight at which, due to fuel consumption, a plane is no longer capable of returning to its airfield of origin. After passing the point of no return, the plane has no option but to continue to some other destination. The phrase implies an irrevocable commitment<br /><br />Some of you may feel like you’ve passed that point already; not of fuel consumption but of drugs, alcohol, gambling, sexual perversions and down the list of sins. You feel that you’ve sinned too much to be forgiven, you’ve hated too much to be relieved, you’ve gotten too bitter to be healed. </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I’m here to tell you that though your fuel may be spent already, and though you cannot go back, and though you feel like you’ve no other option but to abide in sin, yet the Lord has promised to bear you up on eagles’ wings, if you’ll only stop flapping! </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="left"><br /></div></span><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">On the 23rd of July 1983, Air Canada flight 143, a boeing 767, ran out of fuel at 12 500 meters of altitude. It was halfway through its flight from Montreal to Edmonton. While flying over <span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong>Red Lake</strong></span>, Ontario, the cockpit's warning system sounded, indicating a fuel pressure problem on the plane's left side. Soon after, <strong>due to human error</strong>, all engines failed.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The crew was miraculously able to <strong>glide</strong> the aircraft safely, over a distance of 100 kilometers, to an emergency landing at Gimli Industrial Park Airpot, a former airbase at Gimli, Manitoba. Everybody survived. </span></div><p align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">A landing under similar conditions was later attempted on a flight simulator. The pilots crashed the plane. Everytime.</span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span> </p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span> </p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color:#000066;">Deuteronomy 32:11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:<br />:12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. </span></span></span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#000066;"></span> </p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#000066;"></span> </p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">So today I’m your warning system. You’re flying over a <strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">red lake</span></strong> which<br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Revelation 20:10</span> calls “<span style="color:#cc0000;">the lake of fire and brimstone</span>”. Some of you know that already. But I’m saying: </p><div align="left"><span style="color:#cc0000;">your fuel is out. All systems down... and you ain’t gliding.</span> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">You wanted to smoke and fly. Now you’ve just opened your eyes and realized you’re 13 kilometers up in the air and falling like a bowling ball. Your "come down" is going to hit the ground at terminal velocity, cut through the earth and bust into the belly of hell.</div><div align="left"><br />Do you realize that there’s an actual moment, a single point in time, <strong>any time</strong>, before which you are alive, and after which you are dead? There is no such thing as a slow death. The process leading up to it may be slow and drawn-out, but actual death is as instantaneous and sudden as a flash of lightning.<br /><br />I’ve got another message for you, look in the mirror, you can read it there.<br />God speaks of the bible as a looking glass, a mirror.<br />Here’s what the mirror says </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">“<strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Deaths in the mirror are closer than they appear</span></strong>.”<br /></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Some of you have been falling for a long time...</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><strong>T</strong> minus<strong> 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1</strong><br /></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></span></div><div align="left">You could die at 2, not 0, or at 6, or 9...</div><div align="left">Your life, most literally, hinges upon a point, any point.</div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">Ezekiel 21:15 I have set <strong>the point of the sword</strong> against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Sometimes the Lord writes down the period to a man’s life with the sword. </span></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="left"><em></em><span style="font-family:verdana;">"And Georges Antonios lived so many years and he died. "</span></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The origin of the word “point” is “thrust”. When you point out someone, you’re thrusting in their direction. Some men have the point of the sword of God pointed over their heads, ready to thrust through their being and divide the spirit from the flesh. The Lord can pop a man like a balloon. And the more puffed up with hot air you are, the louder the pop. Yet you delay receiving the Lord Jesus Christ and trifle with sin like as it were a venial matter. </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">For some of you the point of the sword is so close it’s pressing against your skin. Your skin is sinking beneath the constant pressure and is about to cave in, stretched to the absolute limit, film-thin. You're about to bust and the only thing holding the blade from pushing a point deeper is the formidably precise and deliberate hand of God.</span></div><em><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br /></em><span style="font-family:verdana;">You say “You’re lying; God wouldn’t direct the point of a sword against me”. What if I proved to you that you’ve done it to yourself? You’ve often pierced yourself with a sword. You just figured that a sword had to be of a certain size. Let me tell you something: the only difference between a sword and a dagger is measurement, and the only difference between a dagger and a needle is measurement. </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="left"><br />Yes sir, you’ve pierced your own body with the point of a needle and injected death into the blood God gave you for to live. Nobody is judging you; you have judged yourself worthy of death. Don’t you know that “death by injection” is a method of execution? Don’t you know that <span style="color:#000066;">“all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Matthew 26:52</span>? For those of you who like those modern bibles allow me to paraphrase “all those who take up the needle shall die by the needle.”<br />Here’s what the book of Job says about Satan: </div><div align="left"><br /></span><a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV2&byte=2184405"><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">Job 41</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">:30 <strong>Sharp stones</strong> are under him: <strong>he spreadeth sharp pointed things</strong> upon the mire.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">You’ve heard the expression “live like the devil”. Well if you find yourself in the street with sharp stones under you and sharp pointed things <strong>like needles</strong> spread around you, congratulations, you’re living like the devil.<br />So now why, pray tell, do you figure it such a strange thing if God Almighty should set the point of a sword against you when you have done it first, and repeatedly? You mean you have more dominion over that body than he does? Did <em>you</em> draw the veins in your arms, or set your heart in the midst of your bosom? Did <em>you</em> irrigate your body with blood or assemble the bones of your hands?</span></div><div align="left"><br /><a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV2&byte=2878515"><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">Jeremiah 17</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">:1 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with <strong>the point of a diamond</strong>: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The real danger is not the ravages that the points of needles have inflicted upon your flesh nor is it the tattoos which have <strong>died</strong> your skin, but the sin which has graven grooves in your heart. When you <strong>die</strong> the flesh you kill the flesh. But when you sin against God’s holy law you kill your heart.<br />Some of you reassure yourselves. You figure, Ok so I’ve done this sin here but at least I haven’t done that one there. I’ve never <strong>shot</strong> myself (notice how all those terms refer to death) I’ve only smoked. Guess what: “death by gassing” is a method of execution also. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in <strong>one point</strong>, he is guilty of all.</span></div><span style="color:#000066;"><div align="left"><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Why? </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="left"><br />Because</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">James 2:11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.</span></div><span style="color:#000066;"><div align="left"><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Sin is a personal offense against a personal God. You’re offending a person : the Lord Jesus Christ.<br />Now you might think, well allright, I can’t untattoo my skin, I can’t unprick my veins, and I can’t unengrave my heart. You’re perfectly right; you can’t. You messed up your life, you ruined your birth and you are even now, whatsoever age you are, at the point to die. </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><p align="left"><br />Remember how that the point of no return was the point past which a plane couldn’t return to its airfield of origin? Well your origin is innocency. And you can never regain it.<br />Remember also that the plane had to continue to some other destination?<br />Well you left innocency and you’ve been on the way to hell ever since.<br />You must change destination and be carried heaven-ward. You can’t fly there, you don’t have enough fuel. You must be carried there by the wings of the Almighty God.<br /><br />I’m still your warning system. I’m displaying an update. Not only is your current destination hell, but <span style="color:#cc0000;">the fire has already begun in the plane. And while you’re busy consuming, the engine, your heart, is being consumed.</span><br /><br />Many tell me “this is hell”. I correct them. This is a foretaste. Some of you can already feel the flames of hellfire licking at your soul.<br />You’re sick with a burning fever. Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant. Whether you feel it or not is irrelevant. Do you realize that when you get the cold shivers, it’s because you’re burning with fever?!<br />Your flesh is a liar. You can’t trust it.<br />I remember a movie called “Jacob’s ladder”. At one point Jacob is doing above 40 degrees Celsius and he’s shivering cold. Two of his friends carry him into a bathtub filled with cold water and ice-cubes while he’s screaming and twirling. They save his life.<br />You’re feverish, at the degree of death. </span></p><p align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">There’s a solution, but it often fails, because ‘tis seldom tried. Why? Well it’s too simple… It’s so simple it’s despised. And so it is seldom tried. But all those who have tried it got healed completely with full remission (of sins). No exception, ever, in 2000 years of medical practice.</span></p><div align="left"><br /><a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV2&byte=94146"><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">Genesis 25</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">:32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at <strong>the point to die</strong>: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Some rights have cost some people a lot. God bought you a birthright : the right to be born again. The cost of that right was all the blood of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Just like you were born of the flesh once, you can be born of the Spirit, once. That birth is sinless, perfect, and immortal. It is acquired freely, by choice this time, simply by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as your saviour from condemnation and hell. Forgiveness, my friends, is a free gift to whosoever will receive it through faith in Jesus Christ.<br />Esau was at the point to die, yet he despised his birthright.<br />The Bible says</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000066;">Hebrews 12:16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">There are here men who will reject the right to be born again for the sake of one shot, one puff, one sniff, one drink, one meal…If you despise the blood of Jesus Christ which bought you your birthright, God will despise you when you die.<br />The solution to <strong>the point of death</strong> is <strong>the turning point</strong>. The Lord is halting you for a moment in your mad dash to death and hell. He’s offerring a time to repent. He pleads: Repent, here and now. I mean here and now. I mean right here and right now. Call on the Lord Jesus Christ and ask him to forgive you your sins against him. Here, now, in your heart. Turn at this point, before you reach the point of no return. Let that heart of yours turn within your chest. Is there a wise man here today? I’m looking for a wise man; a man who will halt and hear. </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I know there’s a defiant man. You’ve walked up against God’s stretched-out sword on your own. Take heed, God’s pen of iron lies against your fool neck about to write down a final period to your life’s sentence.</span> </div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Halt, you’re at the point of death.</strong><br /></div></span><p align="left"><br /></p></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-59358936071940033602008-03-27T11:20:00.005-04:002008-03-28T15:51:44.281-04:00The Light in the land of the livingJesus is the light in the land of the living<br /><br />One of the verses that kept me going during the most difficult times of my life was the following: <span style="color:#3333ff;">Psalm 27:13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD <strong>in the land of the living.</strong> <span style="color:#000000;">That </span><span style="color:#000000;">phrase "<strong>land of the living</strong>" kept me going for it gave me hope that even in this life God is good to us. </span><br /></span><br />Then this morning I rejoiced as I read the following verse which came as a vivid reminder.<br /><span style="color:#3333ff;"><span style="color:#000099;">Psalm 56:13 For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may <strong>walk before God in the light of the living</strong>?<br /></span><br /></span>Jesus is the Light of the living, in the land of the living.<br /><br />Using the red letter style, watch what Jesus said about himself in <span style="color:#ff0000;"><span style="color:#000000;">John 12:46</span><em> </em></span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;"><em>I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.</em></span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;"><em></em></span><br />Are you walking in the Light of the living, in the land of the living, today?<br /><br />For suffering fellow believers, I say:<br />Take courage my friend, for Jesus is the hope in the land of the living, today and every day.Consecratedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01379233856153699219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-42507382682178690672008-03-21T00:29:00.003-04:002008-03-21T00:37:40.834-04:00the archaic New International Version<span style="color:#000066;">If you've ever believed for a moment that the new Bible versions are easier to understand than the King James Bible, dare to check</span><a href="http://www.av1611.org/kjv/vanceniv.html"><span style="color:#663366;"> </span><span style="color:#cc0000;">this comparison</span></a><span style="color:#000066;"> out between the NIV and the KJV.</span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">Come on now, be objective and check it out.<br /></span><span style="color:#000066;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000066;">My assistant pastor often says that the Bible versions issue is the only one where a man is called an idiot by being told he couldn't understand the KJV and he simply replies "oh ok, I guess you're right". And that's proof that there's something spiritually wrong there.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-36490598488310825572008-02-23T02:26:00.006-04:002008-02-23T03:38:32.235-04:00Revival Hymn (edited)<p><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dywbfaWp7Tks_mGabJqkjdYcEyqaNrgAmlmhVo-cMPvXQJ2TAOLFb8gUd_u59qSBW9gIYWPOKIxXuI' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">This is a compilation created by "fire on the altar". I've edited the video where it dragged, or had a contemporary "Christian" song which went completely against the vein of the video. <strong>It's not perfect in cadence or doctrine</strong>, but if you want an idea on what revival feels like, and what it takes, you're in for something here.</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">The preachers are: Ian Paisley, Leonard Ravenhill, A.W. Tozer, Duncan Campbell, Paris Reidhead, A.T. Sparks.</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">How far, dreadfuly far away we are as a church, from what our Lord would have us be.</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">Shame on us. Epaphras, zealous for them that are in Laodicea, where art thou?</span></p><p><span style="color:#000066;">Watch it, then go pray, pray, pray.</span></p><p><br /><span style="color:#990000;">For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, </span><span style="color:#990000;"><strong>to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. </strong></span></p><p><span style="color:#990000;">Isaiah 57:15</span> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-29669350943378670462008-02-01T16:58:00.000-04:002008-02-01T17:21:01.421-04:00Blessed are we in Jesus<em><span style="color:#cc0000;">Psalm. 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; </span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#cc0000;">and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance</span></em><br /><br />Looking back over the past seven months, I stand in awe of my Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.<br /><br />When I think that in the span of six months I could have lost both a mother and a sister, but that the Lord granted them back to us alive, I can only rejoice as I think of our blessedness in Jesus Christ. Indeed, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.<br /><br />For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?<br /><br />The Lord is in his holy temple.<br />The Lord's throne is in heaven.<br />His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.<br /><br />O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord: Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee: But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.Consecratedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01379233856153699219noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-59301175418375396342007-12-26T01:29:00.001-04:002008-04-25T02:39:26.134-04:00Some hymns, good old hymnsSo many people worship in the flesh nowadays. They figure that because the ear of the flesh is pleased, and their body is driven to motion, then it must be from the Holy Spirit...HOLY Spirit. I guess hymns are too spiritual for the flesh. Well I'm here to let you now that Bible-believing youths like myself (I'm 25) still love the good ol' hymns and we sing our lungs out, rejoicing in Christ Jesus.<br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">"<em>He Leadeth Me</em>", A Capella, the Drummond Family<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/12/767588/He%20Leadeth%20Me.mp3" width="244" height="62" type="audio/mpeg mpga mp2 mp3" autostart="false" loop="false" controls="console"></embed><br /><br />Bible Baptist Church congregational music (Dr.Ruckman)<br /><br />"<em>Arise My soul, Arise</em>"<br /><embed src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/12/767588/13%20Arise%2C%20My%20Soul%2C%20Arise%20%28223%29.mp3" width="244" height="62" type="audio/mpeg mpga mp2 mp3" autostart="false" loop="false" controls="console"></embed><br /><br />"<em>And Can It Be</em>" (If ever there was a runner-up to "<em>Amazing Grace</em>" being the Christian national anthem, "<em>And Can It Be</em>" is the one.<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/12/767588/07%20And%20Can%20It%20Be%20That%20I%20Should%20Gain%20%2844%29.mp3" width="244" height="62" type="audio/mpeg mpga mp2 mp3" autostart="false" loop="false" controls="console"></embed><br /><br />"<em>Psalm 23</em>" Judy Theophanopoulos ( my Pastor's wife. You should hear her sing Psalm 3 though I don't have it now"<br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/12/767588/11.%20The%20Lord%20Is%20My%20Shepherd.mp3" width="244" height="62" type="audio/mpeg mpga mp2 mp3" autostart="false" loop="false" controls="console"></embed><br /><br />"<em>I'd Rather Have Jesus</em>", Dallas Holm</span><br /><embed src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/12/767588/Dallas%20Holm%20-%20I-d%20Rather%20Have%20Jesus.mp3" width="244" height="62" type="audio/mpeg mpga mp2 mp3" autostart="false" loop="false" controls="console"></embed><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">And to end, again congregational music from the Baptist Bible Church in Pensecola:<br />"<em>I've A Home Beyond The River</em>", is number 499 in the hymnal "Great Hymns of the Faith".<br /><br />My church here in Laval sings its lungs out when it comes to this hymn<br /></span><br /><embed src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/12/767588/04%20I-ve%20A%20Home%20Beyond%20The%20River%20%28499%29.mp3" width="244" height="62" type="audio/mpeg mpga mp2 mp3" autostart="false" loop="false" controls="console"></embed><br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">We worship the Lord Jesus Christ in the spirit, not in the flesh, but with joy my friends, with joy.<br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-20264137134236056792007-12-25T01:00:00.000-04:002007-12-26T01:33:08.941-04:00My aunt was wounded in a terrorist attack<span style="color:#000066;"><br /></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SSQ5gjccbXE/R3CVlWCTXdI/AAAAAAAAABI/jUouGT1o7ZQ/s1600-h/UN+building.jpg"><span style="color:#000066;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5147778842887413202" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SSQ5gjccbXE/R3CVlWCTXdI/AAAAAAAAABI/jUouGT1o7ZQ/s320/UN+building.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="color:#000066;"><br />On December 11th, some deceived, bitter, blinded by hatred wackos blew a couple of vans up and I suppose themselves along as they brought down the UN building in Algeria.<br /><br />My aunt is a UN chief who had been newly assigned to Algeria. Most unusually, her visa kept getting delayed, and when it finally came through, it was just in time for my aunt to arrive for the explosion. She had been there less than 24 hours. The building collapsed over her. My aunt trusted her soul to the Lord Jesus Christ years ago. God allowed her to be present for the explosion. She is not dead. The Lord preserves his saints. After a maddening day for my mother, as pieces of information were being forwarded to her, seeing she is an immediate relative and also a UN employee, we finally found out that she had head wounds and was in the hospital.<br /><br />Both my aunt and mother were flown to Switzerland, where my aunt is still recovering in a hospital. She was fortunate. There were over 70 killed and about 200 wounded. One woman lost both her legs.<br />The first thing my aunt told me on the phone was<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."<br />Romans 8:28<br /></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SSQ5gjccbXE/R3CVs2CTXeI/AAAAAAAAABQ/jQ5BqzPg_Jw/s1600-h/dead+in+algiers+attack.jpg"><span style="color:#000066;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5147778971736432098" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SSQ5gjccbXE/R3CVs2CTXeI/AAAAAAAAABQ/jQ5BqzPg_Jw/s320/dead+in+algiers+attack.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><br />Compare that one to the Muslim god. Listen I don't care about the UN, nor do I buy the beast created for public consumption by the media that is "Al-Quaeda".<br />But don't come telling me that those people are fanatics who misunderstand Islam and misinterpret the Qur'an. I've read some parts of that book, in Arabic. Let me tell you this: Those "fanatics" are more honest than the moderate Muslim, they aren't misinterpreting anything. <strong>They don't care about public opinion like the moderates do, so they read that book a lil more honestly</strong>. It is a petty book of a petty god whose spirit is drenched in vicious hatred and devilish zeal.<br /><br />On the morning of the 12th I received a call from Copenhagen. A soft-spoken, sympathetic lady was contacting immediate family of the wounded. She addressed me with the usual humanistic clichés for consolation. I answered that I didn’t like seeing my aunt get hurt, but that she had trusted the Lord Jesus Christ years ago, so that we weren’t worried; had she died, we would know where she had gone. I could hear her swallow her spittle when she heard that. She didn’t have the pre-programmed mundane answer to that one. No psychological training had seen that one coming. With stunned difficulty she mumbled “it’s nice to have something to hang to”…<br /><br />I could’ve told her I was trusting the tooth-fairy to keep her alive and she would have answered me the same thing. I can’t stand that “good for you” attitude. Yeah buddy, and it’s good for you too! I’m not trusting some mystical higher power, I’m not trusting the force, I’m not trusting a rabbit-leg or a horse-shoe, I know whom I have believed, and his name is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living of God. I know what he did for me, I know his character, his personality, his like and dislikes, I know his love, his justice, his zeal, his jealousy, his holiness.<br />We talk to each other everyday.<br /><br />You have to die for your god. My God died for me...and for you too.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7524292.post-83302556372899867622007-11-22T10:52:00.001-04:002008-04-25T02:40:05.934-04:00Brother Donovan on Catholic confession<span style="color:#000066;">This is a man who was born-again and is a Bible believer.<br />Catholicism is anti-Biblical.</span><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/H66gaF_KhLo&&rel=" width="425" height="355" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2